Abyssus Abyssum Invocat
by Bubble Wrapped Kitty
Summary: (Sequel to Beneath the Sandglass) Four corpses, four locations, and no suspects or evidence. When bodies start cropping up all over, Audrey and Nathan, already stressed by the strange tension in their relationship, find themselves stretched to their wit's ends. But they need to solve the case, because the death count is rising and the hands are closing in on their little town...
1. Chapter 1 - A Holiday Drink

AN: In celebration of the fact that season four is beginning one week from today, here is the first chapter of my long (long, long, _very_ _long_) awaited sequel to "Beneath the Sandglass." I'm not going to say that it's 100% necessary to have read that one first, but it's definitely at least 99.9% necessary. Also, I really just want you to read it because I'm particularly proud of it.

Since this is a direct sequel, remember that the story is AU as of 1x10.

Oh and the title is Latin, and can be loosely translated to mean "Hell begets hell." It's relevant, I promise.

Thanks everyone for being so supportive to me all these years and I hope you enjoy.

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Chapter 1 - A Holiday Drink

Bart Keller leaned against the porch rail and took a deep drag on his cigarette. Winter was coming fast and he wrapped his free arm around his torso to stave off the bitter cold. He definitely would have to remember his coat when coming out to smoke from now on.

With a heavy sigh, Bart lifted his cigarette and took another drag. His neighbours across the street had already strung multi-coloured fairy lights around their windows, twinkling in the darkness. Bart snorted, shaking his head. Idiots. Thanksgiving was tomorrow and those stupid morons had put up those lights two weeks ago. Who'd want to prolong the holiday nightmare any longer than they had to?

Smoke streamed from his nostrils as he exhaled. Bart had just stuck the cigarette between his lips again when the front door opened behind him. He pretended not to hear it even though it creaked loudly. Damn it, he'd forgotten to grease those hinges. Just another thing for Judith to nag him about. "Bart, you coming to bed?" Judith asked.

"Hmm?" Bart asked, feigning confusion. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw his wife standing in the doorway in her nightgown, a robe hanging open over her shoulders. "Oh, yeah, just gimme a sec. Just needed some fresh air."

"Alright, honey," Judith said. She turned to head back into the house and then paused and frowned up at the door. "And honey, could you remember to grease these hinges in the morning?"

"Yeah, yeah, got it," Bart said dismissively. He turned his back on her again and went back to his cigarette, which was sadly burning close to the filter. Judith hesitated, like she wanted to say more, but then she just shut the door behind her. Bart rolled his eyes and leaned his elbows on the porch rail.

How had he become this guy? He always thought he was going to be so much more, but no, his life had dissolved into this horribly domestic nightmare. His days consisted of mind-numbing desk work, being nagged to do housework by his wife, and being ignored by his ungrateful kids. And now he couldn't even enjoy a fucking cigarette in peace.

Bart flicked the cigarette butt out into the snowy lawn and watched it disappear into the white. Then he promptly pulled another from the box in his pocket and lit up. The tobacco left a satisfying burn in his throat as he inhaled. When had his life gone to complete shit? He was going to go places. He was gonna leave this stupid hick town behind and go on to bigger and better things. He wasn't supposed to be sitting at home entertaining his crabby ass in-laws all week.

To hell with that. Bart started down the pavement, one hand clutching his cigarette and the other tucked into the pocket of his jeans. He needed a drink, and he needed it bad. Judith had gotten rid of all the alcohol in the house. Her crazy mom was some sort of recovering alcoholic and couldn't be around the stuff, so the rest of them had to suffer for it. She wouldn't even let him keep a couple Buds in the fridge in the garage. So he was going to go enjoy himself somewhere else where folks weren't going to nag away the last few pleasures of life.

The lights were still on in the Rust Bucket and Bart tossed his cigarette before he shoved through the door, grateful for the heating as it swept over him. There weren't many people there, mostly just the local barflies and a very tipsy young woman with a young man who was most definitely going to score tonight. Bart gave the kid an approving nod - the woman was smoking hot, after all - and then took a seat at the bar.

"Scotch on the rocks, Otis," Bart said. "Make it a triple."

"In-laws?" Otis asked when he set the glass down on the counter in front of him. Bart gave him a significant look. "Yeah, that's what I thought." With that Otis left him alone, only coming back to refill his glass whenever it emptied. Bart basked in the pleasant warmth that was a combination of central heating and alcohol. Yes, this was certainly better than being at home.

Bart stood up and Otis asked, "Leavin' already?"

"Nah," Bart said. He shook his head and then clutched the bar as the room wavered slightly. "Gotta take a piss." With that he set off for the restrooms tucked into the other side of the bar. The fluorescent lighting made him squint when he stepped in, and he walked up to the nearest urinal and unzipped. When he was finished he turned to the sink and stuck his hands under the automated faucets. He glanced in the mirror and something caught his eye. Was that-?

Bart's eyes widened in shock and horror. He spun around quickly and a split second later a pair of hands had closed around his throat. He sputtered and tried to claw the hands away, but nothing he did could break the grip. The world went hazy. His vision went black. And Bart Keller collapsed in a heap on the cold bathroom floor.


	2. Chapter 2 - A Sour Wake-up

AN: Guys, the day is finally here! Squee!

On that note, please no spoilers in the reviews, not only for the benefit of others who might read them but also because I won't be able to watch the episodes until the day after (stupid school) and I'd really appreciate not having it ruined.

And I forgot to mention last chapter, this story is overall un-beta'd. The first three or four chapters were beta'd by the lovely and darling Faith_Chan (miss you, love!) well over a year ago when I had first started writing this, but there've been some changes since then and I've bound to have mucked it up.

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**Chapter 2**

_"Parker!"_

_Audrey pounded against the sheet of thick glass separating her from Nathan. On the other side his hands were flat against the glass as the flood of white filled up passed his ankles and towards his knees. Panicked, Audrey threw her shoulder against the glass but it didn't do anything, no matter how many times she tried. When she finally gave up and looked through the glass again Nathan was buried to the waist and his expression was scared._

_"Parker, the sand!" Nathan yelled, beating his fists against the glass. Audrey looked up at the enormous sandglass in horror, watching the white filter down into the lower bulb where Nathan was trapped. "Parker!"_

_"Hold on!" Audrey shouted back. She reached for her sidearm but the holster was empty. "No!" she shrieked, fumbling for her gun but not finding it. "No!" She looked up and Nathan was struggling to keep his head above the rising waves of white sand. "No, Nathan!"_

_"Audrey!" Nathan gasped out before the sand slid down and his face vanished. All she could see was his hand, extended above the white and reaching for her. Hopeful. Desperate. If she could just reach him she could save him. She clawed at the glass but she couldn't get to him. His wrist was sinking beneath the sand, then gradually his palm._

_"Nathan!" she screamed as his fingers disappeared into the white and he was gone. "Nathan!"_

_BUZZ!_

The monotone ringing jerked Audrey from her sleep and she bolted upright in bed, panting heavily. After a second to get her bearings – it was just a dream, just _another_ damn dream – she realised it was her phone ringing that had woken her up. Confused, she glanced at the bedside clock. Four-eleven-am. Audrey let out an irritated growl and snatched up the phone.

"Parker," she answered curtly, burrowing herself back down beneath the covers to stave off the cold morning air.

"Happy Thanksgiving."

Audrey blinked and frowned at the phone, because she knew that voice. What she didn't know was why in the hell he was calling her at four in the morning to wish her Happy Thanksgiving. "Nathan, please tell me that is not why you woke me up at such an ungodly hour of the morning," Audrey pleaded into the phone, turning to bury her face in her pillow. "Because if so I will hit you. _Hard_."

She heard Nathan give a wry chuckle over the phone. "I don't have a death wish," he said by way of an answer. "No, if you ever remembered to take your radio home you'd know we've got a case. Dead body down at the Bucket."

Audrey groaned again but sat up, keeping the blankets wrapped firmly around her shoulders. "Alright, I'm up," she said grudgingly. "Did it snow again last night?"

"Yeah, I'll be there in fifteen," Nathan said. Audrey murmured her agreement and then hung up. It seemed like he'd had to come pick her up almost every day for the last month. Her little rental car was just not built for driving around in the snow, as she'd found out the hard way after the first storm of the season when she'd slid off the side of the road and gotten wedged in a snow bank. It was safer to just rely on Nathan and his four-wheel drive.

Audrey gave herself five more minutes, both to enjoy the warmth of her bed and to clear her mind. It had been just over two months since the Sandglass case and she still hadn't been able to make the nightmares go away. Nearly losing Nathan had shaken her a lot more than she was ready to admit. Not to mention it had brought to life a lot of other unusual emotions involving her partner that she definitely wasn't prepared to deal with just yet.

Shaking her head, she took a deep breath and then ran for the closet. Even with the heater running, it was chilly in the Bed and Breakfast, and her bare feet were protesting against the frigid hardwood. She hurried through getting dressed, bouncing around on the balls of her feet to keep from getting cold. She had just finished and hurriedly combed down her hair when she heard the rumble of Nathan's truck pulling up into the car park. Audrey forced up the zip on her coat as she jogged out and clambered into the cab of the truck.

"I brought coffee," Nathan said and gestured to the two travel Thermoses in the cup holder.

"Oh God, I love you," Audrey said gratefully, grabbing one of the mugs and taking a swallow. It was only when she heard Nathan give an awkward laugh that she realised what she'd said. "I meant the coffee," she said hastily.

"Of course you did," Nathan agreed, just as quickly. Audrey turned her attention back to the coffee so she could avoid his eyes, and he backed them out onto the road. She alternated between rubbing her fingers together and cradling the Thermos in her palms to keep her hands warm, making a mental note that she really needed to get a pair of gloves before she lost any fingers.

Nathan cast a sideways smirk at the action and said, "Cold? It's just a little snow."

"This is most definitely not just a _little _snow," Audrey argued, grateful for the return to casual conversation.

"It is for Maine," Nathan said. "You moved here from Boston, haven't you ever seen winter before?"

"Not in a while," Audrey admitted. "I spent most of last winter in Orlando. Oddly enough, it doesn't exactly snow down there."

Nathan nodded in understanding and left her to her coffee, which she drank down eagerly. She wasn't a morning person like Nathan, especially since her nightmares made it feel like she hadn't actually gotten any rest. He seemed content to simply focus on his driving and Audrey took the chance to collect herself as they rode the rest of the way to the Rust Bucket in silence.

The bar was more alive than the detectives were used to seeing it at such an early hour of the morning. Audrey was almost ashamed to admit just how many times she'd been by the bar so early, but in all honesty it wasn't like the Troubles really ran on a typical nine-to-five schedule. Besides the barman's rusting Cadillac, there was a police cruiser and an ambulance parked in the lot. Nathan pulled the truck up as close as he could get to the kerb without getting stuck in the snow drifts left behind by the ploughs.

Audrey kept close behind Nathan as they tromped up the walk to the bar, both because his tall frame blocked some of the wind and so she could step in his footprints. She was wearing her thick, fur-lined boots, but her toes were still cold and she didn't want to add wet to that list. It was a welcome relief to shut the door behind them inside of the Rust Bucket.

Otis, the elderly and irritable barman, was standing at the counter being interrogated by Officer Seddal and the new patrol recruit, a fresh from high school and all too eager boy named Marshall. If Audrey was honest with herself, she wasn't even sure if Marshall was his first name or last. There were two EMTs hovering in the doorway of the restrooms in the back corner of the room. The only other occupant of the room was Jed Johnson, the local barfly who currently appeared to be passed out at one of the booths.

With a short jerk of his head, Seddal directed them toward the restrooms. Nathan led the way, Audrey still a half step behind him. When they'd walked over the older of the two EMTs greeted them with a shallow nod and a weak smile. "Happy Holidays, folks," he said dryly.

"What do you have for us?" Nathan asked, looking past the man into the bathroom. It looked exactly like a typical restroom with the exception of a medical tarp covering a body in the middle of the tiled floor.

"Bart Keller, forty-three," the EMT said. "According to Otis, he came in, had some drinks, went into the bathroom and never came back out."

"So what, guy has too many drinks, falls and hits his head," Audrey said. "Not exactly an uncommon thing."

"Yeah, that's what we thought at first too," the EMT said. "But then we saw this." He knelt down beside the body and drew back the cloth. The middle-aged man's face was already starting to pale with death, and that made the violet bruises wreathed around his neck stand out even bolder.

"He was strangled?" Nathan asked in surprise. He knelt down opposite the EMT and held one of his hands over the man's neck, visually comparing the bruises. "They definitely look like hand prints."

"Oh I'm about ninety-nine percent positive they are hand prints," the EMT said. When Nathan and Audrey both raised an eyebrow he added, "Well if this wasn't Haven, I'd be a hundred percent. But it is, so it's always safer to give myself some wiggle room."

Neither of the detectives could dispute that logic. Audrey surveyed the restroom curiously. "Well there's only one way into this room," she said. "That window is way too small for anyone but maybe a cat to get through." She paused and glanced down at the strangulation marks. "And he definitely wasn't throttled by a cat. So whoever it was must have had to come in through the door. Which means someone out there would've seen him."

"Good luck getting anything from Otis," the EMT said and rolled his eyes. "Bob's been grilling him for the last half hour and he's not exactly being helpful. Mostly just telling us to get out. I think someone's missed out on his beauty sleep, if you know what I mean."

Nathan gave a nod of acknowledgement. "Alright, thanks Joe. Let us know what you get when you're done with the autopsy." With that they left the EMTs to their business and went back out into the barroom. Seddal looked almost relieved when they came over and Nathan signalled that he could leave.

"When you gonna get that corpse outta my bar?" Otis asked immediately. "I need to get this place ready for my morning rush and I can't do that with a dead body rottin' on my floor."

"Morning rush?" Audrey asked with a raised eyebrow. "You get that busy in the mornings?"

"Do on holidays like Thanksgiving," Otis answered. "Get folks in here hiding out from the families. Don't rightly blame 'em either."

"Well the sooner you tell us what we want to know, the sooner we can get out of your way," Nathan said.

Otis eyed them suspiciously for a minute and then nodded. "Bart came in just a bit after midnight. Ordered his usual, and then just sat there and drank. Didn't say nothing to me, and I didn't say nothing to him. Little later, must've been about two o'clock, he went into the bathroom. I was getting ready to close up at three when I noticed he hadn't come back, so I went to check on him. Wouldn't be the first time someone passed out in the bathroom here. Found him dead as a doornail in the middle of the floor, and that's when I called you folks in. End of story."

"Did anyone else go in there with him?" Audrey asked. "Or did you see anyone acting suspiciously?"

"There were only three people 'sides him in here last night; this young kid and his drunken girlfriend, and Jed over there," Otis said. "The kid and his girl left not long after Bart showed up, and Jed, well he's been passed out over there since about one in the morning. No one else came in, and no one else went out."

Audrey nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, I think that's all we need from you right now," she said. "If we have more questions we'll drop by."

"This mean you're getting that body out of my place?" Otis asked gruffly.

"We're working on it, fast as we can," Audrey said as diplomatically as she could before sunrise. Otis seemed far from pleased with the answer, but he didn't argue as he turned his back on them to start polishing the already gleaming countertop. Accepting the dismissal, Nathan and Audrey checked one last time that everything was covered and then went back out to the truck.

"So what do you make of that?" Nathan asked as he started up the engine to get the heaters running.

"Well we've got a guy who was murdered by a mysterious throttler, who can either shrink themselves down to fit through a tiny window, turn invisible, or walk through walls," Audrey said. "That's the only way I can think of that someone managed to get into that room, strangle Bart Keller, and then get back out without anyone being any the wiser." She took a sip from her coffee and looked out the windscreen thoughtfully. "Either that or someone is lying to us."

Nathan gave a wry chuckle. "I love how that's the last possibility that you consider," he said, shaking his head. "Well there's not much more we can do until the autopsy comes in, and the M.E. won't be in the lab before nine." They both glanced at the clock set in the dashboard. Four-fifty-six a.m. "You want me to drop you off so you can catch another few hours of sleep?"

Audrey traced a finger around the rim of her coffee cup. "I'm not going to be able to get back to sleep now," she finally admitted. "Might as well just stay up. I should probably shower and make some attempt to look decent though."

"Probably not a bad idea," Nathan said. "If you want, you can shower at my place and I'll make us some breakfast." He hesitated, it suddenly occurring to him just how that sounded. "I mean, it'll save me the hassle of having to drive back up to the B&B to pick you up again before heading to the station. Driving up Cleary Street is never fun, even in my truck."

"Okay," Audrey said, even though she didn't sound entirely confident in the idea. "Yeah, that's a good plan." Nathan nodded and pulled the truck out onto the road again, driving them toward his house. They sat in the quiet, neither of them really concentrating on what was going on. Audrey drank her coffee slowly, staring out of the window.

There was the strange awkwardness rearing its ugly head again. They were doing a good job of ignoring it, but that didn't change the fact that it was there. Ever since the Sandglass case, things had been - _different_. They were still friends and partners, and nothing interfered with their work or their friendship, but somehow the dynamic had shifted.

Whatever it was, they were balanced on the edge of something big.

The brakes creaked in the cold as Nathan parked the truck in his driveway. Audrey clambered out and followed Nathan up the path to his front door, pausing on the front step to kick some of the snow from her boots. Inside she stripped off her coat and Nathan took it from her to hang it on the hooks by the door. As he did his fingers brushed hers and he twitched slightly before looking at her curiously.

"Your hands are cold," he said, sounding slightly bemused by the idea.

Audrey gave a sarcastic smile and then busied her hands with the laces of her boots. "Yeah well that's what happens when you don't have gloves," she said. Even though it had been more than two months, she was still having difficulty adjusting to the fact that Nathan could feel her. He worked very hard to not let it become weird, but there were still the little moments like this when the smallest touches made his eyes widen and a narrow smile steal across his face. It wasn't the way that the contact affected her partner that made her uncomfortable though; it was the way it affected her.

"You should really get a pair of gloves," Nathan said. "It's only going to get colder. By the end of December, being out at night without gloves can get you frostbite." They lingered there for another moment and then Nathan abruptly cleared his throat. "Anyway, I'm going to go start some breakfast," he said. "The bathroom's down at the end of the hall, and there's some extra towels in the cupboard under the sink."

"Right, thanks," Audrey said. She slipped past Nathan and walked down the hall. Inside of the bathroom, she locked the door and dug out one of the fluffy towels beneath the sink. For someone who couldn't feel, he had a good taste in linens. Audrey shook her head to clear it and then turned on the shower before stripping down and climbing under the warm spray.

No matter how scattered her thoughts were, they had a murder to solve and she needed to keep her head on straight.


	3. Chapter 3 - Breakfast and Banter

AN: Sorry I forgot to publish this yesterday, I had my first big paper of the semester due so I was caught up in that.

Again, please no spoilers :D

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Chapter 3

Nathan watched Audrey disappear down the hallway and then headed into the kitchen to start on breakfast. He had pulled out the milk and eggs when the sound of running water from down the hall made him pause. _The shower_. He struggled to keep his mind from wandering at the realisation that Audrey was in his shower. That was not a place he needed his mind wandering right now. He couldn't help it if those sorts of images cropped up in his dreams, but he couldn't afford to be thinking about those things when he was supposed to be working.

With a groan Nathan leaned against the counter and looked down at his hands. Just a few minutes ago he had felt his fingertips. His hand had brushed against Audrey's as he'd taken her coat and the nerves in his fingers had flared into life, telling him that her skin was soft and cold like ice. He had shivered in surprise and hadn't been able to stop the observation coming from his mouth. Audrey had been accepting of the fact that he could feel her, adapting to the truth a lot faster than he had for sure, and it made him feel better that he wasn't keeping a secret from her.

No, what really had him worried was how much he craved her touch. And it wasn't just because he could feel her.

A dull click and rasping brought Nathan back to reality and he looked down at his feet. Delilah, the little old dog that he had rescued from being sent to the pound, sat down on his feet and looked up at him hopefully. Nathan smiled and reached down to scratch her ears quickly before going back to cooking. He was just starting to lay out the dishes on the island when the shower turned off, and a few minutes later Audrey came into the room, dressed in her work clothes with her hair still hanging in damp ringlets around her shoulders.

"Let me guess, pancakes?" Audrey asked with a smirk, glancing at the table.

"And eggs," Nathan said as he set the frying pan down on the island counter. "I do know how to change things up a little."

Audrey chuckled and slid onto one of the stools, grabbing the mug of coffee sitting beside her plate. "Wow, you of all people advocating changes. It's some sort of miracle," she teased.

"Be nice or I'll eat all this myself," Nathan warned even as he dished a pancake and a fried egg onto her plate. He smirked and slipped into the seat across from her. Audrey put a piece of pancake into her mouth and made a small hum.

"Not bad, Wuornos," she said appreciatively.

"Not as good as Muriel's," Nathan said with a shrug. "I haven't quite figured out her recipe yet and she won't tell me her secret. Something about old family recipes and that sharing it jinxes it."

"Don't worry, detective, I'm sure you'll figure it out," Audrey said and grinned. "You always do."

Nathan returned the smile and then tucked into his breakfast. Every few minutes he'd drop a piece of egg to the floor where Delilah would quickly snap it up. After the third time Audrey gave a small laugh and muttered something that sounded like, "spoiled." Nathan didn't dignify that with a response.

"So," Nathan started abruptly, trying and failing miserably at sounding off-hand, "you got any plans for the day?"

"Besides working, no," Audrey said, arching an eyebrow at him suspiciously. "Why?"

"Well, it's Thanksgiving," Nathan pointed out.

Audrey's smile was a little more forced. "Not too familiar with that one," she said with a shallow shrug. Nathan wanted to kick himself. No, actually, he wanted her to kick him because then it would actually hurt. Of course she wouldn't be doing anything for Thanksgiving. That was a holiday for families and distant relatives you only ever saw once a year. Audrey didn't have a family. She had assimilated so well into Haven that sometimes he forgot she wasn't a local like him. "What about you?" she asked, obviously trying to keep the conversation light-hearted. "You going to cut a turkey with the Chief?"

Nathan gave her a deadpan stare in response, making her laugh into her coffee. "No, we usually just work through the holiday," he said. "Besides, I'm not a big fan of stuffing."

"Duly noted," Audrey said. They finished their breakfasts quietly, and then Nathan rinsed their dishes and stashed them away in the dishwasher.

"Well I'm going to hurry and wash up, and then we can head into the station," Nathan said. "Go ahead and make yourself at home." When Audrey nodded he turned and went into his bedroom, and then through to the adjoining bathroom. He turned on the shower and stuck the thermometer beneath the spray, then leaned on the counter to wait for it to reach a good temperature.

This thing between he and Audrey was starting to get frustrating. It seemed like all of the easy banter and playfulness they used to share was tainted now, like he was constantly afraid of saying anything to make their friendship even more strained. It was all very counter-productive. He knew that he felt something more than just simple friendship for Audrey. He wouldn't go so far yet as to call it love, but there was definitely some sort of connection. What he didn't know was _her _feelings.

Which was really the sticking pin in the whole mess, wasn't it? He didn't dare act on his feelings without knowing that they would be reciprocated. Their friendship and partnership was too important to him and he couldn't lose that over a vague possibility. He had few enough people in his life that he could trust, and losing her too would be the final nail in the coffin. But how could he know what she felt? Without asking and making a fool of himself, anyway?

The thermometer in the shower chirped loudly and startled him from his thoughts. He undressed and climbed under the spray, blinking water from his eyes as he focused on cleaning himself. Now wasn't the time to stress about his quasi-relationship-thing with Audrey. There was a dead body and what looked like it would probably turn out to be a Troubled murderer on the loose. Tension and confusion would have to wait.

When he'd dressed and gone back out into the main part of the house, it was to find Audrey perusing the bookshelf against the wall of the living room. "Find anything interesting?" he asked.

Audrey spun around, looking like a kid caught with her hand in a cookie jar, and he realised why. The book she held open in her hands was a photo album. "Sorry," she said quickly. "I didn't - I wasn't snooping, I just -"

"Relax, Parker," Nathan said with a small smile. "If it was confidential it wouldn't be out in the living room." He walked over, instinctively sidestepping around Delilah, and peered over her shoulder curiously at the open page to see what she'd been looking at. It was an old, time-worn photograph of two people; a beautiful young woman with short blonde hair and a bright smile, with her arms around a little boy with missing front teeth and limbs that looked too long for his body.

"Is that your mom?" Audrey asked quietly.

"Yeah," Nathan said, staring at the picture thoughtfully. It had been ages since he'd looked through his old albums. He generally tried to avoid thinking about those days.

"She's beautiful," Audrey said. "You guys look really happy."

Nathan smiled and nodded, and then cleared his throat awkwardly. "We should probably get heading to the station," he said. "Get started on that paperwork before the M.E. calls." Audrey nodded and put the book back up on the shelf, and then they both pulled on their winter gear and headed out to the Bronco.

. . . . .

"Heard you two got yourself a murder." Nathan glanced up as The Chief leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms over his chest. "You got any idea how he died?"

"It all points to strangulation right now," Audrey answered.

"Points to?" The Chief asked, arching an eyebrow.

"We're keeping our options open just in case," Audrey explained pointedly, "but we're fairly positive."

The Chief nodded in understanding. "You got any suspects?"

"No," Nathan said shortly.

"That part's still being a bit elusive," Audrey cut in as the men exchanged kurt glances. "We're still waiting on the official report to come back from the M.E. before we jump to any conclusions."

The Chief grunted and nodded again. "Well, soon's you get that back, you go see Bart's wife and let her know what's happened," he said. "Won't do no good for Judith to find out from someone else, 'specially not on a holiday."

Nathan frowned, and Audrey must have been thinking the same thing because she asked, "Wait, you know this guy?"

"Well yeah," The Chief said in that condescending tone Nathan was all too familiar with. "He's Big Bartie."

"Wait," Nathan said, his eyes widening in surprise, "you mean, the Big Bartie K?"

"Who?" Audrey asked when The Chief nodded. "Is this one of those weird small town things that everyone knows but me?"

"Big Bartie K, he was the best hockey player to come out of Maine in ages," Nathan explained. "The first athlete from Haven to go pro. Until he got hurt in his first year and had to retire. I didn't know he came back to Haven."

"Not long after the accident," The Chief said. "So when you get your facts together, you go pay Judith a visit and let her know what happened, got it?"

"Got it," Audrey chipped in when Nathan scowled. The Chief shot a glance at them both and then walked away, fingering the pocket he used to keep his cigarette box in. When he'd passed out of sight, Audrey glanced over at Nathan and said, "Would it kill you two to play nice just once in awhile?"

"Possibly," Nathan said with a shrug and went back to his paperwork. Across the room Audrey gave an amused snort and settled herself into her desk again.

They had only been working for about twenty minutes when the office phone rang and Nathan picked it up. "Haven PD, Detective Wuornos speaking," he said robotically.

"Wuornos, it's Jorgenson in the morgue," was the curt response.

Nathan immediately turned on the speaker setting and gestured for Audrey to come over. "Alright Jorgenson, what'd you find?"

"It's all pretty straightforward," Gary Jorgenson drawled out. Through the connection Nathan could hear the sound of him chewing at a piece of gum and Nathan wrinkled his nose in disgust. He wasn't very fond of the slobbish middle-aged man who had replaced Eleanor Carr, and as time had passed that displeasure had only grown. "He was strangled, simple as that. The injuries to his neck and throat match up with being suffocated by someone of similar height and weight. The only other injuries were some post-mortem bruising on his head from hitting the floor when he went down."

"Did he have any defensive wounds?" Audrey asked. "Any sign of trying to fight off his attacker?"

"There's a little bit of skin beneath his fingernails that didn't match him, so it's a pretty good assumption it came from the attacker," Jorgenson said. There was a loud smack as he popped his chewing gum. "Problem is we don't have anything else to match it up to so I've got no idea who it came from."

"Anything else useful?" Nathan asked shortly.

"Not really," Jorgenson said unconcernedly. "Blood alcohol level matched up to the story you got from the bartender, no drugs in his system. He was a heavy smoker, lots of lung damage, early stages of emphysema. Probably meant he died fairly quickly. That's about all I've got for now."

"Alright, call if you find anything else," Nathan said and then hung up before the M.E. could respond. Audrey shot him a short amused smile.

"So it was definitely murder," Audrey said pointedly. "Should we pay a visit to his wife, see if he had any enemies that might have wanted him gone?"

"After you," Nathan said, gesturing toward the doorway as he grabbed his coat. As he followed Audrey back out to the truck, he let out a relieved breath. It was so much easier to function when they had a case to focus on.


	4. Chapter 4 - Futility to Feast Upon

Chapter 4

The Kellers' house was a charming little square cottage not far from the high school, with a large porch and pale green siding. Nathan and Audrey made their way carefully up the icy walk to the front door, and Nathan knocked. There was a loud scuffling noise from the other side of the door, muffled voices, and then the door was opened by a teenage boy sporting a scowl and a black eye. When he caught sight of the badge on Nathan's belt he blanched. "Cops?" he asked anxiously. "Oh c'mon, he's okay, you can't arrest me. It wasn't even my idea. Jack started it."

"Whoa, kid, slow down," Audrey said. "What are you talking about?"

The boy paused and frowned again. "Wait, you're not here about the fight at school?" he asked.

"No, we're looking for your mom," Nathan said. "She here?"

"Oh, yeah." The boy turned around and bellowed, "Mom! Door!"

There was more shouting from inside the house and then a woman in a pink bathrobe appeared at the end of the hall. "Tyler, how many times have I told you not to yell in the house?" she said wearily.

The boy shrugged and then pointed out the door. "Cops are here."

"What?" the woman asked, glancing passed the boy. "Oh. Alright. Well, go see if your grandad needs any help." The boy groaned and rolled his eyes but disappeared back into the house. The woman pulled her robe tighter around herself and looked up at them nervously. "Is Bart in some kind of trouble?" she asked. "He never came back to bed last night and he's not answering his phone."

Audrey exchanged a tense glance with Nathan and then cleared her throat. "Mrs. Keller, I'm afraid your husband's body was found early this morning," she said as gently as she could. "We believe he was murdered. I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Oh God." Mrs. Keller slumped against the doorframe, a hand over her heart. "Murdered?"

"Did your husband have any enemies?" Audrey pressed, wanting to get the questions finished before the shock wore off. "Anyone who might have wanted to hurt him?"

Mrs. Keller shook her head weakly. "No, not like that. I mean, he isn't always the nicest guy, he comes across a little rough sometimes. But for someone to kill him? No."

Nathan put a hand on Audrey's shoulder and she took the cue. "If you think of anything that might help us solve this, call, okay?" she said, passing her a business card. "We'll let you get back to your family." Mrs. Keller nodded and went back into the house without another word, Audrey and Nathan walked to the truck.

"I hate having to do that," Audrey said as Nathan started the truck. "I don't mind anything else about the job, but telling the families is awful."

"It gets easier when we catch the bad guy and get them justice," Nathan said and nudged her arm lightly. When she glanced up at him he gave her a soft almost smile and she returned it shortly before turning her attention back to the windscreen. "So let's get back to the station and work on that, okay?"

"Sounds good," Audrey agreed, and she schooled herself back into cop mode. Solve the case, catch the bad guy. She could do that. At least she could if Nathan would stop staring at her. She glanced over at him and he hastily turned his gaze back to the road.

It was going to be a long day.

. . . . .

The rest of the day was spent mostly in research and paperwork, trying to find some suspect in Bart Keller's murder. After lunch at the diner they went by Keller's work and talked to his boss and a few of his close co-workers. All of the evidence added up to the same answer that his wife had given them; Bart Keller might have been rough around the edges but he didn't seem to have any enemies.

"Well that was a waste of time," Audrey grumbled as they climbed back into the Bronco. They had just spent the last hour combing through Keller's cubicle in the hopes of finding some clue but all they'd learned was that he was fond of Rosemary's éclairs and apparently collected memorabilia about his time in the NHL.

"When are these cases ever easy?" Nathan pointed out. Audrey waved a hand dismissively, the other occupied with covering her yawn. Nathan smiled sympathetically and turned the ignition. "It's been a long day, Parker. Why don't we call it a night and start fresh tomorrow?"

"That sounds good," she said gratefully. The four am wake-up call had taken its toll and even though it was barely past five in the evening, she was exhausted. Nathan had hardly shifted the truck into gear when Audrey's phone rang. She checked the caller ID and frowned before answering. "Hey Duke."

In the driver's seat, Nathan rolled his eyes.

"What?" Audrey asked into the phone, her frown deepening. "What happened? I can't understand you. Trouble? What? Okay, yeah, we're on our way."

"What did he do now?" Nathan asked as she slid the phone shut.

"I'm not sure," she answered and shrugged. "He wasn't making much sense."

"Does he ever?" Nathan asked, arching an eyebrow sceptically.

Audrey ignored him, although the corner of her lips quirked up slightly. "He was saying something about trouble at the Gull. I told him we'd come by and check it out."

"Probably got on the wrong side of one of his shady clients again," Nathan said dryly but he obligingly turned the truck onto the road toward the bar.

When they pulled up to the Grey Gull, the parking lot was empty except for Duke's battered Jeep around the corner of the building. The lights inside the bar were on but they couldn't see anyone moving in there. Normally this time of the evening, the bar was humming with activity.

"Did he close for the holiday?" Audrey asked, a strange chill running up her spine at the quiet.

"Must've," Nathan said, throwing the Bronco into park in the lot. "But then why's he here?"

Feeling anxious, Audrey hopped down out of the truck and instinctively unbuttoned her gun holster. She and Nathan approached the front door of the Gull carefully, and he slowly opened the door. The inside of the bar was vacant and quiet, and the only lights on were the hanging lamps above the bar area, as well as one luminous light glowing out of the doorway from the kitchen. In the centre of the room one of the tables was set with wine glasses and two long, tapered candles, and there were several dishes of delicious smelling food sprinkled across the maroon tablecloth.

"What the-?" Audrey asked in confusion, looking at the table.

A figure was suddenly silhouetted in the doorway of the kitchen and at the sight of a knife in its hand, Audrey immediately drew her gun.

"Whoa, whoa, easy there!" the figure said and he took another step forward so she could actually see his face. It was Duke, and he was carrying a tray with a small turkey on it, a large carving knife clutched awkwardly in one of his hands as he tried to grip it and the handle of the tray. "Don't shoot me until I get a chance to set this down, okay? It took too long to cook it to waste it on the floor."

"What is this?" Audrey asked, her brow furrowing as she slipped her gun back into the holster.

"Oh c'mon, Officer Agent, I thought you'd recognise a dinner when you see it," Duke said with a teasing smirk. He crossed the barroom and set the tray in the middle of the table, and then gestured to the set up with a dramatic flourish.

"I thought you said there was trouble?" she said shrewdly, but the reality of the situation was starting to sink in and she felt something in her chest warm pleasantly.

"Well the trouble is that I made this brilliant Thanksgiving dinner and someone needs to eat it," he responded. "And I can't exactly eat all of this by myself. I'll lose my figure."

"You made us Thanksgiving dinner?" she asked in awe.

Duke gestured her over and pulled out a chair, pushing it in as she sat down. "Well technically I made _you_ dinner. I wasn't expecting you to bring Captain Stoic with you."

Nathan shot him a sarcastic look as he took the chair to the left of Audrey, who just smiled. She knew Duke well enough to know that he was only kidding, and she knew that the two were much better friends than they let on. Duke dropped into the chair on Audrey's other side and then picked up the carving knife with a grin. "So, who wants the dark meat and who wants light?"

That dinner was easily one of the best nights of Audrey's life. Duke was a spectacular cook and he had spared no expense on their little dinner, including breaking out a bottle of his best wine. Nathan and Duke passed the evening trading barbs, but they lacked any of their usual bite, and as the night wore on – and the wine slowly emptied – they began sharing stories of their childhood, seemingly aiming to embarrass the other more. Audrey was sure she had never laughed so much in her life.

"You would not believe the mess," Duke said earnestly over Audrey's giggles. On the other side of the table Nathan was attempting to hide his smile behind his wine glass, but Audrey could see the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. "I'm serious, there was flour and eggs on the ceiling. The ceiling!"

"I still have idea how it got there," Nathan chimed in.

"And you should've seen Mrs. Wuornos' face when she came home and saw. I have never seen anyone's eyes bug that far out of their face," Duke added. Audrey didn't miss the way Nathan's smile sank just slightly at the mention, but Duke didn't notice and barrelled on. "She turned like nine different shades of red and I was sure she was about to give us the telling off of a lifetime. And then she _laughed_."

This caught Audrey off-guard and she looked over in surprise, arching an eyebrow. "She laughed?"

"I'm talking doubled over on the floor, tears in her eyes laughing," Duke said.

"I had never seen her laugh that hard before," Nathan agreed, and although his eyes were tinted slightly with sadness he was still smiling.

"Not that it kept us out of trouble," Duke finished. "We still had to clean the entire kitchen ourselves, and the Chief was none too happy when he found out. But when is he ever happy?"

"Hardly the worst trouble we've been in," Nathan pointed out with a lazy shrug.

Duke grinned. "Nah, for you that would have been when? That time we got caught smoking under the bleachers when we were supposed to be in school? Or when the Chief walked in on you with Nicole Francis?"

Audrey chuckled and Nathan shot him a dour look as his ears turned pink. "Actually I was arrested in college. Drunk and disorderly. I was at a party and said some choice words to the cop who tried to break it up."

"Nathan Wuornos at a party?" Duke said sarcastically. "Oh this I gotta see." Nathan's only response was to roll his eyes and take another swallow of wine. "What about you, Audrey?" he asked, turning his focus on her once he'd realised that he wasn't going to get a rise out of Nathan. "What's the worst trouble Officer Agent Parker's been in?"

"You mean besides getting caught up in your Troubles?" she asked rhetorically. "Well I did get suspended from work for that week after I punched Jimmy Daley in the face." She caught the satisfied grin that flashed across Nathan's face at the mention. He smiled every time that story was mentioned, although whether it was because Audrey had punched Daley for insulting Nathan or simply because he really didn't like Jimmy, she wasn't sure.

"They should've given you an award for that," Duke said earnestly. "That must've been a mean right hook. I saw what his face looked like when you'd finished with him. Besides, it's not like everyone didn't want to do the same thing themselves."

Nathan smirked. "I think it was more the fact that she pulled a gun on him."

"I thought he was killing you," Audrey said with an unconcerned shrug, despite what she knew were the very serious implications of her statement. _I would kill to save you._ But she didn't regret what she'd done. "And he kept calling me Barbie."

Duke snorted. "Okay, Barbie is off the table then," he said. "In that case, help me with these dishes, Skipper."

"That's not better," she objected. "And why am I doing the dishes?"

"I cooked," Duke said. "Least you can do is help me clean up."

Audrey pretended to be reluctant as she started gathering dishes and hauling them into the kitchen, but really she just wanted to hug him. He'd gone to the effort of throwing her a first proper birthday party – despite the fiasco of the Chameleon – and now her first real Thanksgiving as well.

"Thank you," she said a few minutes later when she and Duke were alone in the kitchen. He glanced up from where he was elbows deep in the dishwater and she set the stack of plates on the counter beside him.

"For giving you chores?" he asked flippantly. "No problem, you're welcome to them whenever you want."

"For dinner," she clarified with a smile, even though she was sure he already knew what she meant. "All of this. It was great."

"You're welcome," he said, rinsing off a wine glass and setting it in the drying rack. "But if we're being completely honest," he added and then leaned closer, his voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper, "it wasn't entirely my idea." He tilted his head toward the barroom and through the doorway she could see her partner's back as he wiped down the table where they'd eaten.

"Nathan?" she asked in surprise.

"He called me earlier to say you'd never really had a Thanksgiving, and you had no plans. Asked if I'd do him a favour and maybe bring by a dinner for the three of us – yeah, even said I could join. I told him I'd do him one better."

Audrey beamed and threw her arms around the smuggler's neck, and Duke awkwardly tried to return the hug without getting her wet. "Thanks again," she said when she'd released him.

Duke just smiled and nodded his head toward the other room again, a strange sort of resignation in his eyes. It was a look she had seen once before, that day in the hospital. The day she'd thought she might lose Nathan. She could still clearly remember what he'd said to her in that hospital corridor.

_"You two, you've got something different between you, don't you?"_

She hadn't been able to get those words out of her head since. Was there something 'different' between them? Was there something between them at all? Well at least that part she knew the answer to; there was clearly _something_. It was just a question of what exactly that something was.

Walking back out into the barroom, she grabbed the end of the tablecloth that Nathan was struggling to fold on his own. He nodded his thanks and they brought the two edges together. As she handed her end to him, their fingers brushed and he twitched slightly. He hid it better the second time and then he folded it once more over his arm before dropping it on the tabletop.

"Thank you," Audrey said, leaning back against the table.

"What for?" he asked, copying her position.

"You don't expect me to believe Duke planned this all on his own," she said jokingly. "And you were a bit too willing to come to the Gull and help when he called. That's not very Nathan-y."

Nathan arched an eyebrow. "Did you just make my name an adjective?"

Smiling, Audrey stood on her toes and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. She felt him tense, heard the smallest intake of breath, and when she dropped back down to her heels there was something like wonder in his gaze. He flexed his hand like he was resisting the urge to reach up and touch his cheek where she'd kissed it. Her heart warmed at being able to give him that, letting him feel again if only for a minute. "Thank you," she said again, more firmly. This time Nathan simply nodded.

"Alright, Audrey, one last custom of Thanksgiving for you," Duke announced, coming into the dining room carrying a stack of take-away containers. "Lots and lots of leftovers. All yours."

"What am I supposed to do with all that food?" she asked. As he set them on the bar she counted six different containers.

"Eat it, I would imagine," he said, shooting her a teasing look as he rummaged behind the bar for a sack to put the food in. "Unless you had something else in mind, I suppose."

"Ha ha," she replied dryly. He smirked as he pushed the loaded bag into her arms.

"Alright, now you two go home so I can lock up and get some sleep," Duke said, shepherding them toward the door. "Tomorrow is the start of Christmas season, which means a lot of humbugs needing stiff drinks."

"Ever the opportunist," Nathan remarked as he held the door for Audrey. She shivered and huddled closer to the boxes of warm food as the winter night air swept around them. It had started snowing at some point and a fine layer of new white powder covered the ground, giving the existing snow a fresh, clean covering.

"It's called being a businessman," Duke corrected him.

Audrey could sense another of their little bickering matches coming on, so she cut in loudly. "Night, Duke. Thanks again for dinner."

"Night," Nathan echoed with a small nod.

Duke waved them both off and then slipped back inside to finish closing up. Nathan walked a half-step behind Audrey as they headed toward the Bronco, a hand on the small of her back to steady her over the icy ground. At one point she slipped and Nathan threw an arm around her waist, steadying her against his body. They stood there awkwardly for a minute as Audrey struggled to regain her footing, Nathan's arms around her and Audrey leaning into his chest, her arms still full of turkey dinner. She listened to the pounding of his heart through his coat, enveloped in his scent, and realised that the arm around her shoulder had become tangled in her hair. A none-too-small part of her wanted to stay there for a while longer, which was what ultimately startled her into pulling away.

"You good?" Nathan asked, dropping his arms the moment she leaned back.

"Yeah," she said, re-adjusting her grip on the food which had shifted when she'd collided with his chest. "It's a bit icy," she added sarcastically and she was rewarded with one of Nathan's characteristic slantwise grins.

"It does that in winter," he agreed dryly, and then nodded toward the truck. "Let's get you home before you end up wearing that food."

They made it back to the truck without anymore incidents and Audrey wasted no time in cranking the heaters to their highest setting the moment he'd flipped the ignition. "Wow, they jump on the Christmas thing fast," she noted at hearing a carol on the radio.

"It's a big deal around here," Nathan said with a shrug. He had pulled the Bronco onto the road before he spoke again. "Don't tell me you don't like Christmas."

"I don't mind it," she said evasively. She didn't want to admit that it was yet another holiday she had never really celebrated, apart from the hours of mass she'd attended at the orphanage as a kid. "I usually get stuck working."

Nathan glanced across at her and she knew by his piercing gaze that he'd seen straight through that. "Well you'll probably be stuck working a bunch of the holiday events here. Winter Fest. The Christmas Eve Carnival. The Holiday Parade. Things like that."

"Seriously?" Audrey asked in surprise.

"And lighting the trees at the park," he added as an afterthought. "And I'm sure Duke will throw some sort of Christmas party that we'll get called in to break up."

"Wow," was all Audrey could manage to say to that.

"Welcome to being a small town cop," he said, seeming to know what she was thinking. "This time of year the job is less about stopping bad guys and more about making sure the Teagues don't drink too much eggnog at the Winter Ball."

"Sounds fun," Audrey responded and surprised herself by meaning it. For the first time, she was almost looking forward to the holidays. Nathan smiled but didn't say anything as he steered the truck into the Bed & Breakfast lot.

"Night, Parker," he said.

"G'night," she replied and reached over and took his hand in hers. She squeezed his cool fingers gratefully, one last thank you for his thoughtfulness. "I'll see you in the morning," she said when she let go. "We've still got a murder to solve."

"Right," Nathan said distractedly.

Audrey gathered up the bag of leftovers and hopped out into the layer of crisp snow that had already built up on the shoveled asphalt. She hurried to the door of her room and let herself in, casting one last wave to her partner before she shut the door behind her.

After managing to make Duke's leftovers fit into the little refrigerator in her room, she reluctantly toed out of her warm boots. She decided the shower could wait until morning, so she changed into her pyjamas and crawled into bed, feeling warm and contented.


	5. Chapter 5 - Strike Two

Chapter 5

"How is this part of our job description?" Audrey asked, a bit irritably. They had been patrolling the streets for almost four hours already, and she had spent most of the time grumbling complaints from behind the collar of her coat. When Nathan glanced sideways at her, all he could see of her was a tiny strip of skin between the lowered rim of her hat and the collar that had been pulled all the way up to her reddened nose.

"It's Black Friday," Nathan replied like that was an adequate response. Apparently she didn't think so judging by the way she narrowed her eyes. "Biggest shopping of the year, even here in Haven. Gets out of hand sometimes."

"Still doesn't explain why we're out here trooping around in the snow," she said.

"Well we couldn't exactly drive, could we?" Nathan pointed out. Main Street - along with most of the intersecting streets - was completely packed, cars trying to manoeuvre in and out of parking spots along the kerb. At that moment an argument broke out down the block as a man in an SUV starting shouting at a woman for stealing his spot. Nathan jogged ahead of Audrey to break it up, and after a lot of shouting from all of them the man finally got in his SUV and drove away.

"People are crazy," Audrey said in exasperation as they set off down the pavement again. "All of this just to get some half-price socks."

"You mean you don't want to get some Christmas shopping done while we're here?" Nathan joked. "I know Seddal is; he does every year."

"No thanks," Audrey said, watching the queue outside the sporting goods store shoving and elbowing each other trying to get into the packed building. "I hadn't even thought about Christmas shopping yet," she admitted once they'd passed. "I've never really had people to shop for before."

"Me neither," he said. "Mostly just the Chief. It's more trouble than it's worth anyway. Never know what to get people." He frowned as something occurred to him. There was a new gift-worthy person in his life this year, but what in the hell was he supposed to get for Audrey?

"Well at least you've got one girl who's easy to shop for," she said. Nathan glanced at her in confusion. "Delilah," she clarified with a laugh.

"Oh right," he said. He had half-hoped she was going to drop some sort of hint of what she'd like for Christmas, but he should've known he wouldn't be that lucky. "Think she'd prefer a butcher bone or a bed for the living room? I was thinking of getting it for next to the fireplace so she doesn't have to lay on the cold floor."

Audrey chuckled loudly. "Please, Wuornos, we both know you'll end up getting her both of them and probably more," she said. "You spoil her."

"She's old," he said defensively. "I just want her to be comfortable." Audrey nodded and hummed but he could tell she was simply humouring him. Honestly he knew he had a weak spot for the old mutt he'd rescued during the Sandglass case after her owner had been murdered. He liked the companionship and Delilah didn't know what the Troubles were or that he was any different from other people. It was a nice change.

"Careful, Nathan, or she's going to turn you soft," Audrey teased.

He was saved from answering by a scream from the shop behind them, quickly echoed by others. He and Audrey immediately turned around and began forcing their way through the crush of people that were shoving out of the music store in alarm. It was clear no one actually knew what was going on and they were just panicked by the screams, several of them copying the sounds out of instinct. Nathan lost track of Audrey in the rush, as her smaller frame was jostled around in the crowd, but when he finally got inside the now mostly empty store lobby he spotted her ahead of him.

Nathan tailed Audrey in the direction of the storerooms, unlatching his holster and setting his hand on his gun. When he rounded the corner into the back hall he saw an older woman leaning against the wall and looking faint as she stared through the open door of the room across from her. Audrey had drawn her gun and she turned to the room with it raised. A split second later she staggered back a step, pressing the back of one hand over her mouth.

"Parker?" Nathan asked in concern, half-jogging to her side. When he looked into the room he felt his stomach twist uncomfortably and he had to fight back to nausea.

A large and clearly heavy shelving unit had fallen over, its contents spilled around it. There was a wide pool of scarlet seeping out from beneath and a man's arm stuck out from under the side, twisted at a gruesome angle.

Turning his gaze away from the scene, Nathan pulled his radio off his belt. "Laverne, we need a paramedic down at the music store on Main Street."

"Code blue?" she asked.

"No hurry," he responded grimly. "He's dead."

. . . . .

While Audrey and one of the EMTs looked after the traumatised shopkeeper, Nathan had worked with Seddal and the other EMTs to clear up the crime scene. The man – who was identified as the store owner, Troy Gaven – had clearly died immediately. The shelf that had fallen on him had crushed in his skull along with shattering his skeleton in several different places. It had taken a lot of careful work from the EMTs to get the mangled body onto a stretcher and out of the building.

Nathan followed them out a minute later, needing a breath away from the scent of blood. In the lobby he found Audrey talking gently to the shopwoman, who was wrapped in a blanket and shaking. He walked over and heard the woman murmuring, "Oh Troy... I don't understand... Always told him..."

"Ms. Gaven, can you tell me what happened?" Audrey prompted delicately.

"I always told him," Ms. Gaven repeated, her gaze now fixed on Audrey. "Told him that shelf needed to be bolted to the wall. But he said no. The chains would do."

"So it was an accident," Nathan said, glancing at his partner.

"But the chains were there," Ms. Gaven muttered. "I don't understand. They stopped it last time. Did they break? I told him to bolt that shelf." Audrey and Nathan exchanged grim looks and then he gestured a paramedic over to tend to the older woman, who was clearly suffering from serious shock.

"I think that's all we'll get from her," Audrey said, stepping out of earshot with Nathan. "She's the victim's sister. As far as I could understand, he went into the back to grab some merchandise, there was a crash, and that's when she found him."

"Still sounds like an accident to me," Nathan said. "Things like this happen all the time. If you don't bolt in shelves right, they fall. Everyone knows that."

"Clearly not this guy," Audrey said. She frowned thoughtfully. "What was that about chains?"

"Some people use little chains to keep the shelf close to the wall," he said. "She probably meant that. Not as safe, but better than nothing."

"I want to check them, just to be sure."

"You sure you're okay to go back in there?" he asked uncertainly, recalling her pale expression when she'd first seen the body.

"I'll be fine," she agreed determinedly. Nathan nodded and led her back to the storeroom, and held up the police tape for her to slip under. Audrey stepped carefully around the blood on the floor, her face set, and examined the back of the shelf.

"There's a loop here," she mused aloud, pointing at a metal ring that had been welded to the back. She turned to the wall and stared at the short chain link hanging there. Scowling, she pulled a pen from her coat pocket and used it to lift the link. "It's not broken."

"What?" Nathan asked, crossing to her and peering over her shoulder. The chain link was intact and the clasp on the end – the sturdy sort of clip that rock-climbers used to hold their harnesses – untampered with. "Someone just unlocked it."

"Which means this wasn't an accident," Audrey concluded. "So either Gaven unlocked it himself and committed a really horrible suicide..."

"Or someone else wanted him dead," Nathan finished for her. They both looked down at the scene, the scarlet blood still puddled on the concrete floor beneath the shelves. Nathan felt his stomach churn again as the reality sank in. "This was murder."

"Two murders in forty-eight hours," Audrey said, shaking her head. "Who could've done it though? I mean with how busy it's been, this couldn't have been the first time he'd come in here today. So someone must have unlatched it between his trips. It must have been someone with open access to the storerooms."

"Except on a day like this, anyone could have slipped in while they were busy up front," Nathan pointed out, stepping back to survey the hallway. "It wouldn't be too hard to sneak back, unhook the shelf, and slip back unnoticed if both Gaven and his sister were busy at the counter."

Audrey frowned and moved out into the hall, glancing up at the ceiling. "There," she said and pointed to a small black dome stuck in the corner. "They have a surveillance camera."

"Come on, the recorder's probably in the office," he replied, pointing the other direction in the hall to a door with 'Office' printed on the front in peeling gold script. He walked ahead of her and tested the doorknob, finding it unlocked. The room beyond was small and cramped, filled to the bursting point with a rickety desk and battered filing cabinets. There was an old computer sitting on the desk, wires running into it through holes that had been drilled into the walls by someone who clearly was not an expert.

"Charming," Audrey said, wrinkling her nose at the overflowing trash bin.

"Makes our office seem enormous," Nathan said with a grin. He sat down on the swivelling stool in front of the desk and jerked the mouse to get rid of the screensaver. The desktop picture was of a family, presumably the victim's family, all sitting together on a yard in matching tee-shirts. Nathan clicked on the small video screen in the corner and it expanded to fill the screen, showing four different camera angles inside the store. He clicked again on the one showing the vacant hallway and it opened on the screen.

"Not very high quality," Audrey murmured vaguely, leaning in closer over his shoulder to see. The curls that had escaped from beneath her hat swept against his ear and made him shiver. Thankfully she didn't seem to notice as she reached passed him to click on the rewind button.

Neither of them spoke as they watched the images on the screen flashing backwards. At first it was just a long stream of them, Seddal, and the EMTs moving up and down the hallway. Then it was Ms. Gaven, and before that Troy Gaven himself walking backwards out of the storeroom. Nathan hastily adjusted the speed so they could watch it at a slower rate.

He could actually feel the tension rolling off of Audrey in waves as she moved in closer again, her eyes fixed intently on the screen. The time signature scrolled back steadily but the only motions were flickering shadows at the far end of the hall. Finally a figure appeared and they both hit the pause at the same time, Audrey's nail clipping the skin on his knuckle sharply. While he flinched away at the abrupt and unfamiliar pain, Audrey let out an agitated breath.

"It's just Gaven," she announced. Nathan glanced up from the shallow nick on his finger and grimaced when he too recognised the profile of the man on the screen. "No one went in there."

"Maybe they went in before and he just lucked out," Nathan suggested. He made to continue the video but Audrey grabbed his hand in mid-air.

"You're bleeding," she said, staring at the trail of blood that had blossomed on his skin.

"It's fine, Parker," he countered in amusement. "It's just a little scratch." Still, he couldn't bring himself to pull away as she cradled his hand in her much smaller ones.

"Did I do that?" she asked, ignoring his dismissal.

"It's a scratch," he repeated. "I'm not going to die." She continued to ignore him, snatching a tissue from the box on the corner of the filing cabinet. She dabbed away the blood and then checked the narrow cut. When she touched it he couldn't stop the hiss of surprise that escaped him, the dull pain inconsequential but unexpected. "Sorry," she said, withdrawing her finger quickly. She placed the folded-up tissue back on the cut. "You'll be fine, just a scratch."

"I know," Nathan said dryly, his lips quirked.

Audrey gave him a playfully sarcastic look. "Well excuse me for not believing you," she said, a touch over-dramatically. "Considering you think you're fine even after you've been shot."

"But I wasn't shot. You clawed me," he pointed out.

In her default reaction to losing an argument, Audrey reverted to changing the subject. "So no one went in there before the victim died," she said, turning her focus back to the computer screen.

Nathan swallowed down his disappointment when she released his hand and the nerves in his skin immediately shut off. He placed his hands on the keyboard to stop himself from reaching for her again. Something really needed to be done about this; he was becoming addicted to her touch and it was getting to be a serious distraction.

"Not at that time, but that doesn't mean they didn't come in before then," he said and set the recording to rewind again. They watched it for well over fifteen minutes, all the way through to the point where Troy Gaven had opened the store first thing in the morning, but no one except him had ever set foot in the storeroom, not even his sister.

"It doesn't make sense," Audrey said in frustration, turning around to cock a hip against the edge of the desk. "No one but him went in that room. So who unhooked the shelves? Maybe it was Gaven. Maybe it was a suicide."

"Or maybe it was an accident and he didn't mean to die," Nathan offered. "Could've just been trying to hurt himself as some kind of stunt. An insurance thing, or to sue whoever built the shelves or something."

"Or maybe we just can't see them," she said thoughtfully and her expression morphed into the one she usually wore when she'd picked up on something everyone else missed. "Like they were invisible or..." She trailed off, standing up and leaving the room deliberately.

"Parker?" Nathan asked, jumping up and hurrying after her. She went into the storeroom and when he caught up he found her standing near the far wall, her head tilted back as she looked upwards. He followed her gaze to see a small ventilation duct, most likely an air conditioning vent, with the grate that should have been covering it missing. There was just an opening left behind, a foot wide and at least four inches tall.

"Or maybe it was someone who could come in through a very small space," Audrey said.

Nathan understood the significance instantly. "Just like Bart Keller."


	6. Chapter 6 - Fraying Threads

AN: So a bit of a dilemma, this is the last chapter that I've completely written. I was ahead and then mid-terms came up and I haven't been able to write for like three weeks so you guys are caught up to me. I should hopefully be able to get some writing done during fall break next week, but just in case, I apologise in advance if there's no new chapter next Friday. I will get it up as soon as possible, I promise. Stupid school ruining everything.

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**Chapter 6**

Shortly after their discovery, a second medical car arrived to pick up the spooked and shaking Ms. Gaven. Nathan was shepherding her through the crowd of curious onlookers when a woman broke through to the front and let out a terrible wail. "Margaret," she cried, and tried to shove her way passed the patrolmen lining the barricade. "That's my sister-in-law. Where's Troy? Where's my husband? Let me go!"

Nathan left Ms. Gaven in the hands of the medics and walked over to the other hysterical woman, wishing he had Audrey's help. She was much better than him at calming people down, but she was still inside surveying the storeroom for possible clues. He didn't even get a chance to open his mouth before the woman's wide eyes locked on him with frightening intensity. "Detective, please, what happened?" she asked weakly, gripping the arm of the officer holding her back like it was a lifeline. "Where's Troy?"

"Are you Mrs. Gaven?" he asked, but he already knew the answer. He recognised her face from the family picture on the store computer.

The woman nodded tremulously, her eyes never leaving Nathan's. "Please, where's my husband?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Gaven," Nathan said as calmly and compassionately as he could, lowering his voice against the nosy crowd. The woman's eyes immediately welled with tears, sensing the truth in his tone. "I'm afraid there was an accident and your husband didn't survive."

Mrs. Gaven half-shrieked as she collapsed into the arms of the patrol officer, who awkwardly patted her back as she sobbed against his coat. "Michaels, would you take her back to the station and make her comfortable? I'll be up to see her shortly."

"Right," the rookie officer said, straightening up. "C'mon, Mrs. Gaven. Let's get you taken care of." He put an arm around the shaking woman's shoulders and steered her through the crowd, which parted for the pair.

Nathan took a deep, steadying breath and slipped back inside of the shop. The door had just swung shut behind him when Audrey emerged from the back hallway, and she crossed quickly to him. "I've got them dusting for prints on the shelf, the chain, and that air vent. Hopefully they left behind something that we can use."

"Little elf fingerprints maybe?" Nathan offered and Audrey fixed him with the same exasperated look she used every time he suggested doubt at her theories. "Vic's wife showed up, Michaels took her up to the station so we can talk to her when she calms down."

Audrey grimaced and nodded. "Well I think we've done all we can here," she said, looking around at the remaining handful of policemen that were finishing up the necessary tasks. She sighed and he understood the gesture. Having to press answers out of one grieving widow was bad enough, let alone two of them back-to-back.

"C'mon, we can stop for coffee on the way," he said, jerking his head toward the door. "It'll take awhile for her to calm down enough to talk, and you look like you're still cold."

"I could go for a coffee," she agreed, rubbing her bare hands together.

Nathan eyed the motion and said, "You know, you really ought to get some gloves." The exasperated look Audrey gave him made him wonder if he'd told her that already, but he didn't think that he had. He couldn't say for sure though, he had been more forgetful than usual lately.

The crowd outside the shop had diminished now that people could see that the drama had finished and it seemed that the majority of them had returned to their shopping. Nathan ignored the curious glances from citizens as he and Audrey made the long walk back to the far end of High Street where they had left the Bronco parked.

Apart from grumbling something to herself as she fought with the tricky heating in the truck, Audrey was silent and Nathan missed her constant chatter. Normally she would be spouting off various increasingly more unbelievable theories, but her mindless ramblings had been fewer and far between. The pressing quiet between them reminded him of the brief time he had spent deaf, during the Sandglass murders. Of all the sounds and patterns he had missed, it was the energetic cadence of his partner's voice that had left him feeling empty.

And when his eyes had gone as well...

Nathan grimaced and tried to shake away the utter hopelessness that had taken over at that moment. If it hadn't been for the staggering touch of her hand, he didn't want to think how long he could've been stuck like that; trapped inside of his own broken body, a consciousness completely separate from the world, and with no way to end it on his own. He had never felt so alone, so isolated, so - not human.

A cold brush across the back of his hand startled Nathan back to the present and he realised Audrey was saying his name. "Nathan, are you okay?"

"Hmm, yeah, why?" he asked.

"You just drove passed Rosemary's, for one," she said, gesturing over her shoulder.

Nathan cursed in irritation and pulled up into the next available spot against the kerb. "Keep warm. I'll get it," he said.

"Nathan, wait," Audrey's grip on his wrist stopped him from getting out of the truck, and he glanced across the cab at her. That little line had formed between her eyebrows, the one she always got when she was worried. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Honestly, with her frigid, narrow fingers curled around his wrist, one of her fingertips in just the exact place so he could feel his own pulse point, he was about as far from fine as possible, but that didn't stop him from saying it. "Fine. Just distracted," he lied. "Thinking about the case." Then he pulled his hand free, flashed her a stiff smile, and climbed out of the cab.

Before the door shut, he caught the aggravated sigh she probably didn't mean for him to hear.

Nathan managed to get Audrey to drop her inquisition by springing for a blueberry muffin along with their coffees, and the warm pastry kept her thoroughly engrossed until they reached the station. The bullpen was nearly empty with the majority of their officers out patrolling the streets.

Of the few people left, Officer Michaels was lingering awkwardly near the interrogation table closest to the offices, where Mrs. Gaven was sitting. She didn't seem to be crying anymore, although her eyes were rimmed with smudged mascara, and she had settled into a numb shock. Michaels looked up gratefully when Nathan and Audrey entered the room.

"Thanks, Marshall," Audrey said, giving the rookie a reassuring smile.

Michaels' furrowed his brow and glanced over her head uncertainly at Nathan. Smirking, Nathan just nodded. "Right, no problem, Detective Parker," the younger cop said, and then headed across the station to his desk. Nathan considered pointing out Audrey's mistake to her, but as she walked around to crouch beside Mrs. Gaven he filed that memo away for later.

"Mrs. Gaven," Audrey started. The older woman seemed to startle awake and focused her red-rimmed eyes on them. "I'm sorry to bother you with questions at a time like this, we'll try to keep it as short as possible. Why don't we talk in the office?"

"You said there was an accident," Mrs. Gaven said quietly as she shuffled into the little office with them.

Audrey ushered her to the sofa and took a seat beside her before answering. "A shelf in the storage room collapsed," she explained as succinctly as she could. Mrs. Gaven covered her mouth with a hand, hiccoughing wetly. "We wanted to ask you a few questions before we let you get back to your family. Did your husband have any enemies? Anyone he didn't get along with?"

"No, of course not," she said, sniffling. Nathan grabbed the tissue box from the desk and offered it to her. She took one with a murmured thanks and dabbed at her face. "Everyone loves Troy. He teaches mu- taught music at the grade school and all of the children love him. No one ever had a word to say against him."

"He hasn't had any altercations lately?" Audrey pressed gently.

"No, nothing," Mrs. Gaven said, frowning. "Why? I thought you said it was an accident."

"We are trying to cover all of our bases," Audrey said. "There is evidence that someone may have tampered with the shelves. How long ago did your husband install the chain links on the shelves?"

"A few months ago," Mrs. Gaven said. "It would've been August, right before the school year started. They almost collapsed on him then; a box fell and broke his foot. That's when we made him do something, I wanted him to bolt them but he said - he said the chains would be enough. That's what Lee told him."

"Lee?" Nathan asked, an eyebrow arching up.

"Lee O'Donnell," she expanded. "The metalworker. He's the one who installed the chains."

Nathan nodded and hastily wrote the name on a pad of paper from Audrey's desk. "What about Bart Keller?" he asked. "Did your husband know him?"

"Bart, yeah," she said, looking up in confusion. "We all went to school together. Troy and Bart were friends, they played hockey together. We don't see him much anymore except at the kids' school things. Why, what does Bart have to do with any of this?"

"Bart Keller was killed yesterday," Audrey said. "With the two deaths happening so close together, we were just wondering if there was some connection between them."

Mrs. Gaven frowned and shook her head. "We haven't seen Bart in weeks," she said. "I saw his wife, Judith, at Halloween. We both chaperoned the costume dance at the high school, our kids are in school together. But Bart, I don't even know the last time we talked to him."

Nathan and Audrey exchanged meaningful glances, and he gave the smallest of nods in response to the question in her eyes. "Alright, Mrs. Gaven," she said, touching the woman's shoulder gently, "I think that's all we need. If we have anymore questions we'll be in touch, but now we're going to have Officer Marshall take you home."

"Yes, thank you," Mrs. Gaven murmured as Nathan escorted her back out into the bullpen. He handed her off to Michaels with instruction to take her home, and then went back into the office where Audrey had already taken up her post behind her desk. She was staring pensively as she nursed her coffee.

"Not many answers," Nathan remarked as he settled in at his desk. He took a deep swallow of his own coffee, knowing that the delay from the questioning would have cooled it more than enough for safety. "No real connection."

"Unless someone has a vengeance against the old high school hockey team," Audrey said sarcastically. She leaned back in the chair, twisting to face him. "What other links do we have between them?"

"Nothing in their work," Nathan said. "Doubt Keller ever went in a music store. We'll have to do a check to make sure that Gaven didn't take out a business loan from Keller or anything."

"Which means it's back to research and paperwork," Audrey said, sighing heavily.

"Could be back out in the snow," Nathan pointed out.

Audrey immediately sat up and tugged at the sleeves of her jumper. "I'll pass," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I'm going to pull up the newspaper archives, see if I can find anything similar from before."

"Leaving today's paperwork for me," he concluded dryly, immediately reaching for the drawer that contained his stack of incident reports. As he started filling out the habitual lines, a comfortable silence settled in the office. It was familiar and Nathan felt the tension headache that had been forming slowly filtering away.

He had missed this, the casual air that laid between them when they were working a case together. Ever since she'd first come to Haven, they had fallen into a perfect give-and-take that allowed them to work in sync. He had never known anyone he could play off of so well or someone who could understand without words exactly what he meant. But things had felt strained for the last few months, and he couldn't help but feel like he was at least mostly to blame.

The revelation that he could feel Audrey's touch certainly could have gone better. He had known that he needed to tell her, that the longer he kept the truth from her the angrier she would be with him when he finally told her, but he had never been able to find the right words. All things considered, Audrey had taken the revelation well enough, but he figured that the fact he had nearly died had been part of that. He couldn't help but wonder if those feelings - betrayal or anger or something - were still humming there under the surface and just hadn't been let out yet.

And to make matters worse, he felt that maybe she was pulling away from him. During the Sandglass case, they had seemed to drift closer together. The earnestness of her touch as she had dutifully led him around, keeping him by her side at all times; the insistent concern she had shown when she had thought that his life was in danger; the way her firm grip was the last thing he'd felt before losing consciousness and the first thing he'd felt upon waking again. He had thought that it meant something more, but since his recovery she had been drawing away again, giving him mixed signals in the form of tender touches of the hand promptly followed by averted eyes and stiff responses.

Nathan would be the first to admit that he'd never been very good at picking up on social cues, but he was pretty sure that even an expert would be thrown by the chaos of emotions she was displaying lately.

"Stupid computer," Audrey muttered viciously, hammering at a few of the keys and then sitting back in her chair with a huff. "I could look this stuff up faster the old-fashioned way."

"Just give it a minute," Nathan said placatingly. "The snow slows the internet down."

"Hmm, good thing crime takes the winter off then," she replied irritably, not taking her eyes off the offending loading bar on the screen.

Nathan fought back his smile at her impatience. "Think we're budgeted for upgrades next year," he offered casually.

Audrey snorted and shot him a quick glare. "That doesn't exactly do me a lot of good right now, does it?" she said. She glanced back at the screen and her eyes brightened. "Ah, finally." Triumphant, she leaned her elbows forward on the desk and began scanning down the article she'd pulled up. He watched passively as her smile fell at her brow furrowed, before she reached the end of the page and clicked away from it.

"Nothing useful?" he asked.

"Honestly, it's hard to tell," she admitted. "I mean, there are dozens of hard-to-explain deaths, but none of these articles have said much of anything about the crime scenes. And it's not like it ever comes right out and says 'a guy was killed in a room locked from the inside,' or anything. Apart from that, we don't have much to go on. Our killer doesn't exactly have a steady M.O."

Nathan glanced down at the incident report he'd somehow managed to fill out on auto-pilot, and then up at the clock on the wall. "It was a long shot anyway," he supplied with a shrug.

"Well I want to go talk to that welder, see if he has anything," she said, twirling a pen between her fingers with frightening speed. "Maybe he can give us some details about that chain he installed, tell us if anyone was asking questions about it or if he's done similar work for someone else recently."

"It'll have to wait until tomorrow," he said, pushing back from the desk and standing up. "Gotta leave now if we want dinner tonight."

Audrey frowned and looked at her watch. "It's only four."

"Yeah, but we gotta go work the tree lighting at the park," he said, arching an eyebrow when he realised she had forgotten about it already. They had been talking about it that morning when he had picked her up. He saw the comprehension light on her face, and he rubbed his upper lip to hide his smile. "Exactly," he said. "So if we don't eat now, we're not eating until it's over."

"Do we really have to go to this?" Audrey asked.

"Humbug," he chuckled. "And yes. Whole force on patrol, Chief's orders." He glanced at her computer pointedly and added, "Not like we're making any progress." She grudgingly nodded and began shutting down her computer. Nathan walked over and grabbed her coat from the hook by the door, holding it out for her to put on. "Don't worry, it's not too bad."

"Just cold," she retorted as she slipped into the coat.

"Never really noticed," Nathan said as he grabbed his own coat. When she looked up at him, he shot her a sideways smile, and for the first time all day she genuinely laughed.

"I may have to do something about that."


	7. Chapter 7 - Fairy Lights

AN: Okay so it's a day late, but it's extra long and super fluffy to make up for it. Like literally, there is no plot development in here. Just pure, unadulterated, holiday N/A fluffiness. Diabetics be warned, there be sweetness ahead. The plot will return next time, but I was feeling sugary. I'm sure you guys won't mind. ;)

Un-beta'd because I haven't heard from her in a while, and also I was just too impatient after finishing this to hold off on posting it.

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**Chapter 7 - Fairy Lights**

After filling up at the diner on Muriel's chicken soup and buttered dinner rolls, Audrey and Nathan made their way to the city park. There was still at least an hour until sunset and the lighting, but already clusters of families were standing around on the blocked off roadway around the park and city square, huddled together and sipping at cups of church-provided hot cocoa. Nathan threw the Bronco into park in the lot beside the grocery store and Audrey huddled down inside her coat in anticipation of the bad weather.

"You can wait here in the truck for a while if you want," Nathan said, giving the park an appraising look. "Not too crowded, don't need you for patrols just yet."

A moment of indecision hit Audrey - God wouldn't she prefer to hide out in the truck with the heaters blasting all night - but she shook her head. "I'd rather keep moving," she said, tugging the furry laplander more snugly down over her ears. She caught the quick flash of a smile on Nathan's face before he turned and climbed out of the truck, and she knew she'd made the right decision - she was going to continue enjoying this brief time of no-awkwardness between them. She walked around the front of the truck to join him and they wandered into the park side-by-side.

Audrey glanced around curiously as they made a slow circuit of the cordoned off area. Children were bolting through the snow drifts, building giant, misshapen snowmen with sticks and gravel for accessories. Parents were clustered on the shoveled pavements or at the plastic picnic tables, gossiping and keeping an eye on the colourful blurs of kids. A few small booths were scattered along the road, selling roasted nuts, steaming pastries, and hot drinks. The local radio station was playing Christmas carols from the back of their ancient van. She'd never seen the people so happy, despite the quicky declining temperature.

"This is so strange," she admitted aloud as they ambled past a group of older men smoking away from the crowd. Ever the eloquent one, Nathan arched a questioning eyebrow. "I don't know, I guess I just don't really get this whole Christmas thing."

"I thought you were raised by nuns?" Nathan asked.

"No, not that part," Audrey said, laughing at the confusion. "I know what Christmas is, I just don't understand all of the fuss. The decorating and celebrating and standing around in the cold all night just to see some trees light up."

Nathan shrugged. "It's fun."

Audrey giggled into the collar of her coat. "Nathan Wuornos, advocating fun."

He rolled his eyes deliberately. "It's tradition then. This has been going on for decades. I went every year as a kid."

Audrey looked out at the kids playing in the snow and imagined Nathan as the little gangly-limbed kid from the photo album she'd found in his living room. A slow smile stole across her face at the thought. "I've never really done all this stuff before," she said and was surprised by the pang of longing in her chest. Judging by the look in her partner's eyes, he heard it as well. "It was always just that time of year when suicides spiked and serial killers got really crazy."

"Cheerful," Nathan remarked dryly. The park was getting progressively more crowded as the sun sank into the cloud-covered horizon, and they were forced to weave awkwardly around packs of people. Audrey blew out a heavy breath and buried her hands deeper in her pockets. In the next moment Nathan had pulled off his gloves and held them out to her with a succinct, "Here."

"It's fine," Audrey immediately dismissed. "I don't want to steal your gloves."

"Like my jacket?" he asked with a grin and she thought fleetingly of the over-large flannel jacket she had borrowed months ago during a freak rainstorm and forgotten to return. Well, forgotten might be the wrong word. She'd forgotten for the first few weeks, and then eventually she'd gotten attached. "Seriously Parker, just take 'em. I don't need them."

"Just because you can't feel it doesn't mean you don't need them," she reminded him briskly but he didn't so much as blink in reaction to the stern statement. With a sigh she accepted them and tugged the worn leather onto her hands, revelling in the residual body heat that made them comfortably hot inside. They were far too big for her narrow hands, but when she adjusted the collar of her coat again she could smell warm leather and the ambery-pine scent of Nathan, and she found herself wanting to keep them as well.

"Just about time," Nathan added, checking his watch before jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Night had fallen completely, leaving the park and square illuminated purely by the lampposts staggered every few yards. The children had settled down and were now bouncing in anticipation around their parents' ankles, jostling people as what seemed to be the entire population of Haven crowded the road and pavement around the park.

Nathan wound his way to the back of the gathering, Audrey slipping through in the wake left behind by his presence, and settled to a stop in the open area left behind. A few of the other patrol officers were standing together a couple of metres to their left, chatting amiably. "No point forcing our way through that crowd," Nathan commented at her questioning look. "Now we're just here in case trouble breaks out."

"Normal trouble, or trouble with a capital T?" Audrey asked shrewdly.

"Both," was his simple response. They shifted in the open spot, Audrey tossing her weight from one leg to the other in a vain attempt to generate friction for warmth. After a few minutes, Nathan glanced down at her again. "You see?"

"See what?" Audrey asked, cop instincts immediately going into over-drive as she scanned the crowd for any signs of danger.

Nathan chuckled, the shallow exhales crystallising in clouds before his lips. "The lights," he clarified. "Can you see the lights? Your first Christmas lighting, you'd better have a good view."

Audrey glanced up at him, her eyes slightly narrowed and her head tilted to the side as she appraised him. She knew that her partner had a soft side beneath his silent, Mainer stoicism, but lately he seemed to be particularly sentimental. First with the unexpected Thanksgiving, getting along with Duke to do something nice for her, and now this. What had gotten into him?

Nathan's arched eyebrow reminded her that he was still waiting for an answer. Casting her eyes around the park, she nodded. "Yeah, I can see." Nathan responded with nothing more than an affirmative grunt before turning his gaze back to the park.

Audrey had barely gotten the chance to start musing on her partner's strange behaviour before a rustling and murmuring started up in the crowd. People began to applaud as an older man mounted a small stage in front of the largest pine tree, and to Audrey's surprise even Nathan clapped shortly for the man. "Mayor Brody," he offered when he caught her curious look.

"Popular guy," she noted, looking around at the incredibly adoring crowd that the mayor was trying to quiet with a wave of his hands. There might be something weird about it. Or maybe they were just grateful to get things started and to get out of the cold. Audrey made a note to look up more about the mayor when she got some free time, just in case.

"Welcome everyone," Mayor Brody said cheerfully into the microphone, his voice echoing over the park and finally silencing everyone, "And Happy Holidays. Now as some of you know, today has been a hard day for some of our own, with the accidental death of Troy Gaven this morning and Bart Keller just yesterday. But in this festive season, I would like us all to remember to show compassion to our fellow man and to extend a helping hand to those that need it.

"Now, I could prattle on longer, but it's cold and there's no reason to make these eager little kids wait any longer I think." The mayor lifted a small remote, his gloved thumb poised over the cartoonishly red button. "Happy Christmas, Haven!" he declared loudly and pressed the button.

Gasps of pleasure sounded as the park was suddenly flooded with light. Trees and lampposts, fences and railings all lit up with white specks. As a contrast all of the pine trees were wrapped in multi-coloured fairy lights, rainbow waves washing over the snowbanks. The largest pine tree in its place of honour, was decorated with gold and silver baubles that caught the lights and cast them around. And at the very top of the tree, a brilliant star flared into life, its many narrow points comprised of dozens of tiny little spots of gold that glowed like a beacon against the dark, cloudy sky.

Audrey gasped in awe as she gazed up at the sheer magnitude. Everything had taken on a whole new face in the lights. The heaps of snow and lop-sided snowmen were bathed in an array of colours like stained glass. The icicles that clung to the railings and tree branches magnified the white lights and sent glittering flecks of light into the air. The softly falling snow was illuminated in the sudden glow, the glimmering dots drifting in and out of reality as they descending onto the waiting viewers. It was - magical.

Nathan made a soft noise and Audrey glanced up to find him watching her face. He grinned, a small, sideways smirk, and his storm blue eyes sparkled. "Told you it's worth it."

Audrey smiled and nudged him with her elbow playfully, but it didn't take long for her eyes to drift back to the park. The Havenites were cheering, children jumping up and down with joy as they gazed around at the holiday fares. There was something comforting and warm in the sight, and Audrey wondered if this is what it felt like to have a place. To have somewhere with roots and traditions and familiarity. If maybe Haven had become her first true home.

They stood in quiet reverence for a few minutes more and then Nathan nudged her with his elbow - he missed her arm and hit her in the shoulder blade, but it was a nice effort on his part. "C'mon Parker, time to go play traffic cop for a while."

They spent the next two hours ushering people out of the park to their cars and stopping people from backing over their neighbours in their cars. It was exhausting and frustrating work, worse even than the morning shoppers had been. As the temperature continued to plummet and night sunk its claws in around them, they finally managed to dissipate the crowd and clear off all but the last few hangers-on who were packing up their drink tables or enjoying a last cigarette of the night.

Nathan came and found Audrey where she had been helping Michaels - whose nametag told her she'd been calling him by the wrong name for days - to deal with a family in a minivan who were bound and determined to go down the main road even though it was still cordoned off for pedestrians. "Oh thank God, do we get to go home?" she asked when she spotted him walking up to her.

"Yeah, Chief says it's time to call it a night," he said. "Says these last few people can fend for themselves." He nodded his head in the direction of the Bronco and Audrey fell into step beside him gratefully. "You frozen?"

"Completely," Audrey admitted through chattering teeth. Her coat and Nathan's gloves had helped, but the cold had seeped through her jeans and into her bones, and bitten at every inch of exposed skin on her face and neck. "I'm going to need a very hot shower tonight."

"I've got a fireplace," Nathan said, and seemed to surprise even himself by saying it. "I'm not suggesting anything," he added hastily, looking alarmed. "But I'm decorating my house tonight and I thought maybe you'd like to help. I mean, unless you're going to get your own, or you're not interes-"

"I'd love to," Audrey cut across her partner's awkward rambling. "So long as there's warm food involved. Or beer."

The lines of Nathan's face eased and the corner of his mouth turned up again. "I think I can manage something." They climbed into the truck and Audrey hunkered down in her spot as Nathan pulled them out onto the road again. A comfortable silence held until they had turned into the residential part of Haven. "So," Nathan started quietly, "you liked that?"

"It was beautiful," Audrey agreed. She caught a glimpse of the smile on her partner's face as they passed beneath a street lamp and she rolled her eyes. "You don't need to be so smug about it," she chided in amusement. "I guess I've just never really stopped to pay attention to things like fairy lights and Christmas trees before. It was nice. Different, but nice." She decided not to mention the feeling of homecoming and contentment that she'd felt, and most certainly not the touch of excitement. Nathan was already looking too self-satisfied for his own good.

Only the porch light was on at Nathan's bungalow when they pulled up, crushing the thin layer of snow that had settled in the driveway since morning. When he let them into the house, Delilah slid down off the sofa with a huff and came over to greet them, her tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth. Nathan scratched her ears with a fond "Hey girl," before they shed their winter clothes.

Audrey wandered into the living room, hoping to coax Nathan into lighting the fire, but stopped short when she noticed an evergreen in the corner of the room. It was wide and a deep, rich emerald, and the top branches were only centimetres away from brushing the ceiling. "That's new," she remarked over her shoulder.

"Got it yesterday," Nathan answered, slipping around her to crouch at the grate. "Laverne's nephew dropped it off while we were working, he has an evergreen farm up the hill and gives all the cops a discount."

"Huh," Audrey said appreciatively. The sweet, earthy smell of pine was heavy in the room as she breathed it in. "I might have to get a little one for my place, it smells amazing."

Nathan straightened up as the fire caught in the grate and dusted his hands on his pants. "Don't know why people get fake ones," he said, shaking his head lightly. "You help me get the boxes down from the attic while we wait for the fire to catch? Then you can warm up while I find us food."

"Okay," Audrey agreed. "I didn't even know you had an attic."

Nathan led the way down the hall, Audrey and Delilah both following on his heels. "Well it's more of a crawl space," he conceded. Standing on his socked toes, he grabbed a slip of string that hung a few short inches from the ceiling. As he pulled it down a door opened up, a sliding ladder unfolding in front of him. "It's only about three feet tall," he said, shaking the ladder to make sure it was stable before starting to climb. "But it's good for keeping boxes out of the way."

Audrey stood at the base of the ladder, one foot on the bottom rung to help keep the ladder steady, and watched as Nathan pulled the torch off his belt and flipped it on. She could see the ceiling of the attic, all exposed wooden beams and puffy insulation, just a few inches above his head as he leaned in to reach for the boxes.

She was also getting a very good view of his long legs and backside, the muscles flexed under his tight jeans as he stood on his toes. But she was trying not to focus on that even as she felt heat crawl up her neck and chest at the sight.

"Careful, these," he said, drawing back with a cardboard box clutched in his hands. "Glass." He passed the box down and she set it on the ground a few feet from the ladder before hurrying back. He handed down one more box marked 'fragile' and then another that he warned was heavier. As she set down the last one, Nathan climbed down from the ladder and allowed the trapdoor to fold back up into the ceiling.

"I'll take these two if you grab that one," he said, pointing at the heavier of the boxes. Audrey picked it up and carried it back to the living room while Nathan balanced the two fragile ones in his long arms. Once all three were settled down on the floor beside the tree, Nathan pointed at the now-blazing fire. "Go ahead, I'll grab some food and a couple beers."

Audrey glanced up at Nathan and promptly burst out in giggles. The look of shocked alarm that Nathan gave her was almost funnier than the fact that he had bits of insulation clinging to his hair and she struggled to control her laughter so she could explain. "You've got-" Another peal of laughter cut her off and she gave up. Walking over, she stood on her toes and plucked a piece of the pinkish fluff from his head.

Nathan's eyes widened in surprise and then he chuckled. He reached up and swept a hand back over his hair, brushing the pieces of insulation from his hair. They both laughed while Audrey picked out the last few bits he'd missed, but as she dropped her hands an awkward tension welled up between them. The fact that they were a mere hair's breadth away, so close Audrey could feel the warmth radiating off his body and his breath ghosting across her face as he looked down at her, became shockingly relevant. That electric charge was back, the one that surrounded them whenever they got too close.

Nathan abruptly cleared his throat and took a step back. "Right, food. I'll be back."

Audrey smiled and sat down on the hearth as he disappeared into the kitchen. The fire was warm and washed over her like a hot bath, and she couldn't help but sigh in relief. She pulled her feet up to rest on the stone, letting the heat soak into her frigid toes. She needed thicker socks. Delilah wandered over and sat down beside her with a huff, leaning her head against Audrey's hip.

"Hello miss Delilah," she said and removed one hand from its spot above the flames to stroke the old dog's head. "Why aren't you in bothering Nathan?" Delilah sighed heavily and then her mouth fell open in what could only be described as a grin before she nuzzled into Audrey's side.

Audrey's mind drifted to the case, poring over the information they had so far in the hopes that something new would jump out to her. She was still at it, staring deep into the fire where the flames turned from gold to white-blue, when Nathan sat down on the hearth by her feet. "Grilled cheese and a bottle of local brew," he announced, offering her a plate with a deliciously dripping sandwich and a blue bottle.

Audrey made an appreciative noise as she accepted it and folded her legs up so there was more room for her partner. She wasted no time in taking a bite of the sandwich, feeling a childish enjoyment as the warm cheese dripped onto her chin. The heat of the food filled her insides and pushed away the chill that the night had soaked into her. She devoured the sandwich in no time flat, and by the time she had washed it down with a sip of the microbrew Nathan was only half finished with his own.

"You've got-" he said, pointing at her chin with a smile on his face. Audrey wiped her face with the back of her hand, rubbing away the spot of cheese and leftover crumbs. "Hungry?"

"Cold," she said with a shrug, taking another swallow of the crisp amber lager. "And it was good."

Nathan nodded, eating his sandwich with one hand and patting Delilah's back with the other. While she waited for him to finish, Audrey slid down onto the floor and opened one of the boxes curiously. The heavier one that she had carried was full of bundled up strands of fairy lights in a variety of colours. She pushed it aside and pulled down one of the fragile ones, prying the lid off carefully. All she could see were crunched up balls of newspaper, dutifully wrapped around the individual items to protect the contents from jostling. She tentatively peeled back the paper on a top one and gasped. Inside was a beautifully elaborate snowflake carved out of glass.

"My god, Nathan, this is gorgeous," she said, gingerly lifting the ornament out by its silver string. "Where did you get it?"

"Family heirloom," he said, brushing the last of the crumbs from his face and hands and setting the plate on the hearth. "My great-grandfather on Mom's side made them. He was a glassblower. I inherited them when I moved out."

"The Chief didn't want them anymore?" Audrey asked, lifting an eyebrow.

Nathan shrugged uncomfortably. "He's never really been into holidays, that was always Mom's thing. We stopped really doing stuff like that after she died."

"They're beautiful," Audrey said, nudging aside more paper to reveal a diamond-like star and an intricately swirled icicle. "It's a shame to keep these in a box."

"That's what I thought," he said, kneeling down beside her on the floor. "Let me string these lights and then we'll put them up." Nathan slid beneath the tree, lacing the first strand of white fairy lights through the lowest branches, while Audrey alternated between laying out the ornaments on the coffee table and scratching Delilah's belly where the old dog lay by the fire.

There was a comfortable domesticity about the affair, Audrey passing new strands of lights to Nathan whenever he reached the end of one. They both sipped their way through his six pack of beers and poked fun at each other, chatting amiably about work or even sitting in companionable silence. When Nathan had nearly reached the top of the tree, Audrey wandered over to the radio that sat on the bookshelf and flicked it on. The local radio station piped out an old Christmas carol, something so classic even Audrey knew it by heart. Nathan peered at her from beneath his arm, and for a moment she thought he was going to comment on the action, but he simply smiled and went back to his work.

"Alright, that'll do it," he said, tucking the trailing end of the light strand down along the trunk. The interspersed layers of white and blue lights cast a frosty glow over the dark branches as he stepped back to check his handiwork, the white consistently lit while the blues dimmed in and out of existence. "Let's get these up."

Audrey picked up the snowflake ornament, the first one she'd unwrapped, and carefully looped the string around one of the branches near the middle of the tree. A blue light was directly behind it, and as it blinked it sent out starbursts of sapphire light through the faceted glass. She stood and admired it for a moment until Nathan brushed past her to hang another ornament, startling her back to reality.

It took them nearly an hour to get through all of the glass shapes and baubles, meticulously placing them at intervals around the tree. Near the bottom of the first box Audrey found the first ornament that didn't match the theme and she surveyed it curiously. It was a white ceramic pair of bells, tied together with a ribbon at the top, with a date some twenty odd years ago painted onto the fronts in tiny pink script.

"The day my parents married," Nathan said, noticing her attention. "December ninth. Someone got them that as a wedding gift, for their first Christmas as a married couple."

"This is barely more than twenty years ago," she noted, doing the math in her head. "You were what? Eight, nine?"

Nathan shrugged. "They were unconventional," he said simply. "Mom always said things for them never quite happened in the right order, but it worked out in the end."

"That's sweet," Audrey said, smiling gently. She hung the bells in a place of honour near the top of the tree.

As they got into the second box, which was half-filled with tinsel and porcelain baubles, they stumbled across more and more of the ornaments with deeper meanings. A silver and blue sock with an N stitched onto the ankle that was for his first Christmas. A snowman made out of beads and pipe-cleaners that had been made by a six year old Nathan. A tiny family photo in a gold frame that showed a beaming Chief - with dark hair and fewer wrinkles - with an arm around the pretty brunette woman from the photo album and a young, lanky Nathan.

Finally at the bottom, after Nathan had sprinkled the branches with tinsel icicles, he drew out a deep red, velvet tree skirt and a golden star. The hemming around the skirt was frayed, and the glittering paint on the star had chipped in a few small spots, but he carried them with a sort of reverence that belied their meaning. He glanced up at Audrey, those blue-gray eyes alive with an emotion she hadn't yet learned to place, and the corner of his lips quirked. "You want to do the honours?"

"Me?" she asked in surprise.

"Sure, it's about time you get to put a star on a tree, don't you think?" he said, offering it out to her.

Audrey accepted it delicately and then looked up at the treetop uncertainly. The tree was looming close to eight feet tall, putting that topmost branch out of her reach. "I'm too short," she pointed out. She looked around the room for a chair to pull over and found none. "I'd need a lift, or maybe it'd just be easier if you do it."

"Here," Nathan said, setting the tree skirt aside and walking up to stand beside her at the tree. He crouched just slightly and surprised her by putting his arm low around her waist. "Ready?" he asked. Audrey hastily wrapped her free arm around his shoulders as he tightened his grasp and straightened up, her feet leaving the ground. She felt his arm, warm and strong around her waist, and his other hand clutching at her side to steady her, and for a moment she forgot what she was supposed to be doing.

Right, the star.

Still clinging to his shoulder with one arm, she leaned out and placed the star on the highest branch, checking that it was balanced before finally letting it go. When her hand returned to Nathan's shoulder, he lowered her carefully until her feet met the ground again with a soft whisper of wool on hardwood. He released her, stepping back to give her space, and Audrey felt a bitter chill at the loss of contact.

"There, see. Teamwork," Nathan said, and she pretended not to notice the pink in his ears and cheeks or the way he was idly running his fingers along his inner arm, where her lifted shirt hem had let his skin touch hers. Turning around hastily, he grabbed the tree skirt and crawled beneath the tree - stop staring at his ass, Audrey - and laid out the aged velvet around the trunk and stand. When he slid back out and to his feet, they both crossed the room to survey their efforts.

"Nathan, it looks amazing," Audrey said breathlessly. The lights refracted through the glass ornaments, sending sprays of light in every direction. This tree though, despite being so much smaller and less elaborate, had something that the glorious trees of the park didn't. The ornaments that didn't match the fancy glass ones only served to make the tree more majestic, giving it an aura of history and family and memories; everything Audrey thought a Christmas tree should be. It was, without a doubt, the single most beautiful tree she'd ever seen.

"Yeah, it does," he agreed. Audrey glanced sideways and found his eyes on her. He blinked and looked away quickly. He retrieved their abandoned beers - third of the night - and they settled down on the sofa to watch the glow of the tree fill the room, the crisp whiteness battling with the warm ruddy fire. "Thanks for your help," Nathan said after a long pull on his beer.

"Thanks for inviting me," she replied. She reached across the cushion and took his hand, giving it an appreciative squeeze. "This was - it was great. Thank you."


	8. Chapter 8 - A Morning Coffee

AN: Got myself back on track. That being said, here's the bad news. So as I'm sure most of you know, next Friday marks the start of NaNoWriMo, and I will be participating again this year. This means that because I will have to focus all of my attention on my novel, I'm going to have to put fanfiction on the back-burner for the month of November. Odds are that I won't post anything new here until after the end of the month. (Although I say that every year and still manage to post a thing or two usually.) I will try to crank out one more chapter for you guys to post on the first, but with school and work I can't promise anything so this may be the last chapter you get until December. Don't worry, I didn't leave it on a cliff-hanger.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and I genuinely thank you all for being so supportive and understanding with me. I don't say it enough just how wonderful and helpful all of your fanfic-ers have been in making the writer I am today.

_Disclaimer_: No animals were harmed in the writing of this chapter.

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**Chapter 8 - A Morning Coffee**

Audrey woke slowly and reluctantly, warm and comfortable and for the first time in a solid week not plagued by nightmares. As her mind crawled toward consciousness, she groaned and rolled over, pulling the blankets up snugly around her shoulders. It was Saturday, she didn't need to be up anytime soon. Honestly she could just stay here in her warm bed all day if she wanted to.

Except no, she had a case to solve, suspects to interview. She groaned again and buried her face in the pillow, breathing in the soft ambery scent. Wait a second... No, that wasn't right. Her bed smelled of lavender, like the cheap laundry soap she'd bought last month. And now that she thought about it, this didn't feel like her bed. Where was that spot where the B&B's ancient mattress dipped in on the left side. And these sheets were so much softer than her own.

Perplexed, Audrey pried her eyes open and looked around. The small room, with its sand-tone walls and a lovely armoire in the corner looked distinctly familiar, although she was having a hard time placing it. Wherever she was, it certainly wasn't her room.

The scent reached her again and comprehension struck her like a freight train. Nathan. Of course, that's why the room looked familiar. She had stayed in this very room once before, on the longest and most agonising night of her life. The guest bedroom at Nathan's house, where she had attempted to sleep while Nathan lay in the next room deafened during the Sandglass case. No wonder it had taken her so long to place it; she'd only spent a few restless hours in the room before going back to her research.

Audrey shook her head as the night before came back to her. After decorating the tree with Nathan, they had both collapsed onto the sofa with their beers. Audrey had been feeling pleasantly warm and relaxed, and it hadn't taken long for the exhaustion of the long day to set in. She must have fallen asleep on the sofa, and Nathan had put her to bed in his spare bedroom. The thought that her partner had most likely carried her to bed and tucked her in sent a brilliant blush across her face and she buried her head in the blankets again.

They had had one day when the awkwardness had been low and an easily tolerable level, but she had a feeling that today would not go quite so well.

"No point putting it off," she murmured and, with a sigh, shoved the blankets off herself. She shuddered as the cold morning air hit her and she reached over the edge of the bed to grab her jumper from where it was folded neatly on the floor. Tugging it over her head, she folded her arms over her chest and walked out of the spare bedroom.

She was instantly greeted with the smell of warm pine and fresh coffee. Her stomach grumbled in anticipation and she moved faster, speed walking on the balls of her feet into the kitchen. Nathan was standing at the counter in a pair of flannel pyjama pants and a faded gray tee-shirt, gaze distant and distracted as he leaned on his palms. He looked up as she walked in and offered a half-smile. "Morning."

"Morning," she responded. "Thank you, for letting me stay in your spare room. I guess I was more tired than I thought."

Nathan shrugged. "Saved me the trouble of driving you home." He straightened up and reached into a cupboard - a narrow strip of his lower back appeared as he stretched and she hastily glanced down at her feet - pulling out two blue coffee mugs. "Sugar?"

"No thanks," she said, crossing to the counter island and sitting down at one of the barstools. Nathan poured the coffee and passed one of the mugs to her, taking the seat opposite. She curled her hands around the cup and added, "Give it a minute." He hummed and set the mug down on the counter, propping his elbows on the corner of the counter. "So I was thinking that we should go up and visit that metalworker," she started. Work was neutral ground; safe. "See what he says about the shelves, and if he has a connection to Keller."

Nathan nodded, idly tracing a finger around the rim of his coffee cup. "It's our only lead right now," he agreed. "Won't get anything back from Bangor on those partial prints until at least Monday. And maybe we'll get lucky and our welder did some work on the Bucket's air-con vents or something."

Audrey shot him a short look at his teasing. Even after all this time, he was still so reluctant to admit that it might be a Trouble until he had complete proof. Although she reckoned that it was helpful to have him keeping her grounded so her theories and speculation didn't carry her too far off track. It didn't stop his scepticism from being annoying sometimes though.

She took a tentative sip of her coffee and when it didn't burn her tongue she nodded to Nathan. He acknowledged it with a grateful smile and lifted his own mug. "Right, no rest for the wicked."

. . . . .

The O'Donnell Metal Shop was nothing more than a converted garage built next to the owner's house, the painted sign above the doors chipped and faded. When Nathan and Audrey walked up to the office door they found a sign hanging in the window that read, "If I'm not in the shop, try the house."

"Trusting guy, leaving his shop open to visitors like that," Nathan remarked idly as they followed the pavement over to the cottage house. They mounted the steps to the porch and Nathan knocked, stepping back beside Audrey while they listened to the sound of movement from inside. After a few seconds the door opened to reveal a middle aged man, his auburn hair liberally flecked with grey and tired green eyes. He stood in the doorway with one hand tucked deep into the pocket of his flannel jacket. "Mr. O'Donnell?" Nathan asked.

"Lee O'Donnell, yeah," the man responded. "What's this about, officers?"

"You've heard about the recent murders, haven't you?" Audrey asked.

"Course," he said and nodded. "Everyone's been talking about it. Keller was a bit of a hero 'round here, it gets people talking. I knew 'em both as kids, they were a year older than me in school. What's it got to do with me?"

"Troy Gaven was killed when one of his shop's shelves fell on him," Audrey said, folding her arms and broadening her stance into cop mode. "You were the one who installed the chains on the back of his shelves, weren't you?"

"Yeah, he had me put those on back in the summer, I think it was," Lee said pensively. "Look, that was solid work. If that's how he died, someone must've tampered with those chains because that welding could support a full tonne of weight. I double-check everything I do, just in case." He paused and frowned at them. "Wait, you don't think I did it, do you?"

"No, the chains were still intact," Audrey assured him quickly. "It's not-"

"Dad?" a young voice shouted from inside of the house.

Lee glanced over his shoulder and frowned. "Um, I need to go check on my son. Come in, I suppose. I'll be back down in a second." And after opening the door a bit wider he turned around and walked further into the house, vanishing up the staircase. Nathan and Audrey glanced quickly at each other and then she led the way into the small sitting room. They stood just inside of the door, both of them appraising the room around them curiously.

It was a comfortable, homey place with charming little metal decorations and trinkets on the shelves and tables. The furniture and expensive electronics gave the impression of a bachelor's flat, but there were random, feminine touches scattered between them. Clearly there must've been a woman in the home at some point, although it didn't look like she was there anymore since the softer touches were pushed to the back.

Audrey's eyes drifted to the photographs on the wall and she smiled gently. The majority of them featured a young boy with red-blonde hair and a gratuitous supply of freckles, snapshots of him at various ages from a chubby cheeked baby to a gangly and bespectacled teenager. A few of them included Lee O'Donnell and others showed a pretty, willowy blonde woman. Lee's wife, she assumed.

Before she could explore any further, Lee came back down the stairs, running the hand not in his pocket through his hair wearily. "Sorry 'bout that," he said. "Charlie's pretty banged up, he needed his pain medication. So, what else was it you needed? I don't see how I can be much use to you."

"Has anyone come to you recently, asking about those chains you installed for Troy Gaven?" Audrey asked. "Maybe asked for a similar project?"

"Nothing really like that," Lee said and shrugged. "Not in quite a while anyway. Most people prefer to bolt their things down and they usually do that themselves. You said the chains were still intact? What happened then?"

"So no one has shown any unusual interest lately?" Audrey pressed. "You haven't given anyone information on how to tamper with the shelves to ensure that Gaven would be killed?"

"No, of course not," Lee said angrily. "What is this? Why are you accusing me of killing him, I put those chains in to keep him safe!"

"What about your son?" Audrey asked. "Charlie? Does he know enough about your work to give out that kind of information? He might not even have realised what he was doing, if someone-"

"Stop it!" Lee shouted. Colour had risen in his cheeks and he glared at Audrey heatedly. Nathan immediately placed a hand around her elbow and she heard the distinctive click of the snap on his gun holster being released. "You leave my son out of this, Officer Parker," Lee said threateningly. "You can level all the worthless accusations at me that you want, but you do not bring my boy into this. And if I hear anything about you harassing my son-"

"I'm sorry, Mr. O'Donnell," Nathan cut in, using the hand on Audrey's arm to tug her back a step. "Officer Parker didn't mean to imply anything, we're just trying to follow all avenues of this investigation, just in case." He glanced pointedly at Audrey and she put on a contrite expression.

"My apologies," she said. "We'll get out of your way now. Thank you for your cooperation."

Nathan steered her out of the house, closing the door sharply behind them. "You've really got to stop doing that," Nathan said, releasing her elbow and falling into step beside her as they walk back down the path to the truck. "One of these days you're going to piss off a Troubled person and it won't end well."

"I'm fine, Nathan," she said exasperatedly. "Besides, it's not like he was a suspect. I was just trying to get him worked up, see if he'd let anything slip."

"Just because he's not a suspect in his case doesn't mean he's not Troubled," Nathan pointed out as they reached the truck. He was about to say more when they both heard the distinctive crackle and squawk of the dispatch radio. Frowning, Nathan jerked the door open and grabbed the handheld. "Can you repeat that last, Laverne? I was away from the radio."

"Nathan, you and Audrey should get on down to Pierpont, number 1-8-7," the older woman drawled. "We've got another fatal."

"Another?" Audrey asked in alarm and she could see the same fear in Nathan's wide eyes.

"We're on our way," he said into the radio and then hauled himself into the driver's seat, jamming the radio back into it's port. Audrey climbed in on the other side and the moment she'd shut her door Nathan threw the Bronco into gear.

They rode in a tense silence, neither of them daring to talk about the implications of another death, toward the far side of town and when they rounded onto Pierpont Avenue they could see two cruisers and an ambulance parked on the street in front of one of the houses. Nathan pulled up to the kerb behind one of the cruisers. He walked purposely up into the house, Audrey close on his heels, and ducked under the police line on the doorframe.

Seddal looked up when they came in and gestured over his shoulder to an arched hallway. "He's through there."

Nathan and Audrey nodded their thanks and then slipped down the short hall into a compact kitchen. It was clearly the kitchen of a bachelor, with a few stray dishes and no real decoration or fancy was a body crumpled on the floor between the far counter and a small dining table, and the same paramedic from Thanksgiving morning was crouched at the man's head.

"Ah, Detectives," he said when he spotted them and gestured them over. "Boy we've been seeing too much of each other lately, haven't we?"

"What happened?" Nathan asked while Audrey looked over the body. The man was later middle-aged, with dark blonde hair, his blue eyes still half-open in death, and looked healthy and fine apart from the bright red flush of his skin.

"Name's Myles Lehrmann," the paramedic - Jim? or maybe Jack... - said. "Forty-two, lives here alone. He called 911 but didn't say anything, so they sent Seddal out. Bob scared himself when he set the house alarm off coming in, too. Didn't do any good though; poor guy was dead by the time Bob got here. Poisoned. Someone put it in his coffee, I'd reckon." The medic gestured up to a tipped over mug on the counter a few feet away, the dark brown liquid puddled and dripping steadily over the edge onto the tiles. "You'll have to have Jorgenson check for sure, but judging by the redness of his skin I'd bet it was cyanide."

"Cyanide?" Audrey asked in surprise, looking up from her scrutiny of the coffee puddle. "That sounds like something from an Agatha Christie novel."

"You'd be surprised how often it actually happens," the paramedic said grimly. "Causes a lot of accidental deaths every year. It's found in a lot of chemicals like pesticides, and even in quite a few fruits in small dose. Ingest too much, anything more than about one-point-five milligrams, and you've only got about fifteen minutes before your cells all die of oxygen deprivation. That's why the skin's red, you see?"

Nathan put on a glove and picked up the coffee mug, sniffing it tentatively. "Bitter almonds," he said decidedly. "Definitely cyanide." He gestured and one of the tech officers took the mug and put it into an evidence bag.

"So another murder," Audrey said, standing up and staring down at the body with a frown.

"Could've been a suicide," Nathan said. "It's used in a lot of suicides because it's easy to get a hold of."

"Then why would he call the police?" she said and looked up at him.

"Panic," he replied. "Realised he'd made a bad choice and hoped someone would come save him in time. Either that or to make sure someone found his body. He's obviously a bachelor, so there wouldn't be someone else coming home to find him. If he hadn't called, he could've been here for days - weeks even with the cold weather to preserve him - without anyone knowing. And how would someone get in without setting off the alarm?"

"I just think it's suspicious," Audrey said and shrugged. "Two days, two murders, and now it's the third day and we've got another dead body here."

"All around the same age, too," the paramedic chipped in, straightening up. "Anyway, if you're done with the body here, we can get him up to the lab and double-check on that poison. Figure out how much he ingested, maybe it'll tell you if it was an accident or intentional." Nathan nodded his consent and the paramedic immediately gestured to his companion so the pair of them could load the dead man into a body bag. At the same time, Audrey turned around and crossed the room in long strides.

"Parker?" he asked in confusion, trailing after her. She want through the door on the far end of the room and into the next one, a crowded utility room. The boiler was chugging away slowly and the opposite side of the walkway housed a set of plastic bowls on the floor as well as an enormous bag of dog food. "He has a dog?" Nathan asked curiously. They hadn't heard any noise from a dog yet, and surely it would be making some fuss about all the noise and strangers.

Audrey's attention, however, was fixed purely on the back door of the house. She walked over to it and crouched down. "A dog flap," she said and looked up at Nathan like it was the most profound piece of information the universe could offer.

"Yeah, clearly he has a dog," he replied dryly, pointing to the food bowls for emphasis.

"Yeah, but what's similar between this scene and the others?" she said. She placed her hand against the plastic flap, which was hardly any bigger than her narrow hand, and pressed it open. Looking at the square of space left behind, Nathan suddenly understood.

"The small opening," he said in awe. "Just like the window at the bar and the vent at the store."

"Our shrinking killer could have come in through this door and gone through to the kitchen to poison Lehrmann," she said, following the imaginary path with her eyes. "Could be in and out without setting off the alarms, and even if the vic heard the flap moving, he'd assume it was the dog."

"Except we haven't seen a dog yet," Nathan remarked.

"Maybe it's traumatised and hiding," Audrey suggested, examining the dog flap again. She suddenly winced and stood up, opening the door. "Or it could be right there."

Nathan stepped up next to her to look through the back door and saw the two small terriers laying in the grass, not moving. "Oh God," he murmured and went out into the snowy yard. He knelt at the closest dog and checked it over quickly, his expression tight. "Dead. Both of them."

"The killer probably poisoned them both too," she said. "So they could get into the house without trouble."

Nathan stood up and wiped his hands off on his pants. "Let's have them looked over, just in case, make sure that's what it was." He walked back up to join her in the utility room and she saw a flash of sadness in his eyes as he glanced back at the dead dogs. "And then let's get in to the office and see what we can find out about our vic. See if we can find the connection between these men so we can stop this guy before he kills someone else."


	9. Chapter 9 - Nostalgia

AN: I managed to actually get two whole chapters out before November started, so there won't be much of a delay for you guys on this story during the month. A bit of suspense for you guys to tide you over to next Friday.

I'm also undertaking a unique new project for NaNoWriMo. Instead of writing a novel in November, I'm challenging myself to write a post for my blog every day for the entire month. If anyone is interested in checking that out, which I would really appreciate, then you can find the link on my facebook page or search "That Thing With the Words" on blogspot.

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**Chapter 9 - Nostalgia**

Audrey and Nathan spent the better part of the morning scouring through Myles Lehrmann's house for clues as to who he was and what connection he might have to the other victims. They learned from his computer that he was an independent web designer who worked from home and had made something of a small fortune doing it. There were no indications anywhere in the house of there being other occupants so he definitely lived alone and had no regular girlfriend who stayed over occasionally.

"It seems like apart from work and his dogs, he didn't exist," Audrey said as she scanned through the dead man's phone. "There aren't any pictures of other people in here at all. No siblings, no friends, no girlfriend. Just a handful of pictures of his dogs and him. Did he ever leave this house?"

"Doesn't look like it," Nathan said, eyeing the extensive film collection in the living room. "One of those guys who survives purely on wifi."

"Charming," she said, giving up on the phone after finding the contacts list nearly vacant as well. She tucked the mobile into an evidence bag and pocketed it to take back to the station with them. "And I thought you were anti-social."

"I'm not anti-social," Nathan interjected defensively. Audrey cocked an eyebrow at him. "Just don't like crowds." She smiled slightly and shook her head, but didn't argue the point with him. "Let's check the bedroom, see if there's anything more in there."

They hurried up the steps to the bed and bath suite upstairs. As Nathan looked around it, he couldn't help but think it was precisely the sort of room a bachelor would have. The large bed was unmade, the colour scheme was all monochrome and dark wood. A few articles of clothing had fallen short of the laundry bin in the corner by the bathroom and lay discarded randomly on the floor. A flat screen television hung on the wall opposite the bed, with an expensive sound system set up on the table beneath it.

"Well this screams bachelor pad," Audrey said wryly, stepping over to examine the bedside tables. There were two abandoned glasses, one still half-full of water, and a disorganised stack of papers that she promptly began flipping through.

Nathan went into the bathroom and mapped the place out. It was a large, comfortably sized bathroom with a separate bath and shower each. He opened the medicine cabinet about the sink and found all the usuals - toothbrush and paste, razor and shaving cream, antacids, headache medicine. The shelf in the shower held nothing more than a bottle of shampoo and bar of soap.

"Nothing interesting in here," Nathan announced as he came out, but then paused and frowned. There was something poking out from between the mattress and box spring. Kneeling down, he pulled out what turned out to be a magazine and glanced at the cover curiously. The next second he looked away, an embarrassed blush spreading over his face.

"What is it?" Audrey asked, looking up from rummaging through the drawer of the bedside table.

"Should've known what it was, since he hid it under the mattress," Nathan said awkwardly. "Bit of a surprise though." He lifted the magazine so she could see it across the bed and he watched her eyes widen comically.

"Oh. Oh! Well that explains the lack of girlfriends then," she said and a bright pink tinge had lit her cheeks.

"Yeah, a little," Nathan agreed and tucked the magazine back beneath the bed. That was an image he could've lived without, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably before throwing himself back into the search.

"You know even with that, there's still not a whole lot we know about this guy," she said, closing the drawer and turning around to appraise the room as a whole. "Other than he really liked his dogs. I mean, he got them these nice, embroidered dog beds, but judging by the amount of fur on the blankets they must have slept in the bed with him. Sound familiar?" she added teasingly.

Nathan shrugged. "Delilah doesn't have a dog bed."

Audrey fought back a smile. "Anyway, we've got no leads. He had no social life that we can tell. He worked alone. There's nothing connecting him to the others."

"Apart from his age and gender," he reminded her. "Keller was forty-three, and so was Gaven. Now this guy's only a matter of months older. Maybe they knew each other growing up."

"That doesn't help us much," she pointed out. "This is Haven, everyone knew everyone growing up." She sighed and combed a hand through her hair again. "There's definitely something about their age that connects them though. Maybe a country club thing, or some same place they hang out. Or what about that hockey team they played on in school. I wonder if Lehrmann was on it."

"Easy enough to check," Nathan said. "Library keeps a copy of all the high school's old yearbooks."

"Perfect, let's go look at those then," she said, hastily adjusting her coat. "I think we've found all we're going to get here."

Nathan followed as Audrey led the way out of the house and back to the truck, throwing herself up into the passenger seat before he had even rounded the front bumper. He struggled to contain a smile as he turned the truck on and headed for the city library. In the other seat, Audrey was half-bouncing with anticipation. He loved it. He loved this side of her, the side that was so eager and excited and determined to solve the puzzles. Even if he didn't like the Troubles and thought she was too hasty to jump to supernatural conclusions, being able to watch her fight her way through to the answers almost made it all worth it.

It was also nice to see her relaxed again finally, the thrill of having a new case distracting her from the slightly awkward morning. He could tell from the moment she walked out into the kitchen that she was tense and uncomfortable, not sure how to feel or where they stood after the night before.

Nathan, on the other hand, was feeling something like euphoria up until they went to interrogate O'Donnell and Audrey had gotten so reckless. For his part, it had been a brilliant night. Watching her face light up with a childlike expression of awe at the Christmas tree lighting had stirred something inside of him, the same thing that had compelled him to call in a favour with Duke to make her Thanksgiving special. It sometimes escaped him just how many of those fundamental childhood experiences and milestones that Audrey had missed during her strict, turbulent youth at the Catholic orphanage.

So at the conclusion of the ceremony, he had decided to try and give her one more new experience. He hadn't actually planned to decorate the tree that Laverne's nephew had delivered for him until Sunday, when he didn't have to work. He'd also never let anyone else in on the tradition since the Chief had stopped participating after his mother's death. Unpacking all of those family heirlooms and handmade memories had always been a very private affair for him. But there was Parker, who had never so much as owned a Christmas tree, let alone made decorations or hung them on a tree. When it came down to it, he never had put up much of a fight when she began to work her way into the more personal aspects of his life.

The evening had done everything he could have hoped for and more. She had been fascinated by the intricate glass ornaments, charmed by the handmade and oddball additives. He'd even found that it hadn't hurt so much to go through some of his mother's favourite possessions the way it had in years prior. Having Parker there, having someone to share the moment and willing to listen to his faded childhood memories, had softened the ache. So they had decorated the fragrant tree to the sounds of comforting classic carols, and shared beers while they cuddled Delilah. It had felt oddly domestic.

Just when he had thought the night couldn't possible get any better, Audrey had scooted closer to him on the soda and threaded her hand through his. He had revelled in the feeling, of the way her narrow little fingers fit so perfectly in the curves between his knuckles, expecting the moment to be as fleeting as all of the others. But she didn't pull her hand away. For the first time since the Sandglass case, she had left her hand in his and Nathan was blissful. They had chatted more, Audrey continuing to press him for stories of Christmas past, until she had drifted off with her head on his shoulder. He had stayed there for a while, selfishly enjoying the wonderful feeling of her tucked against his side, their arms aligned, fingers intertwined, and her warm breath ghosting down his tricep.

And then he hadn't been able to bear the thought of waking her, knowing she hadn't been sleeping well for weeks now, so he had carefully tucked her into the guest bed that she had occupied once before. Before he had left her alone, he had traced a finger along the side of her face, tucking a loose strand of hair behind the shell of her ear lovingly.

Because that was the crux of the matter, the truth that the night had revealed to him. People might think he was completely inept socially, that he didn't understand emotions and feelings the same way that other people did, but he wasn't so blind as to not recognise the beautiful warmth that glowed in his chest whenever she was near. He hadn't been certain before, but he was pretty sure now that he was in love with Audrey Parker.

Nathan pulled the Bronco up to the parking strip in front of the library and took it out of gear. He had barely shut the engine off before Audrey was hopping down into the slush, raring to go. Nathan followed close behind her as she jogged up the short steps into the ancient stone and wood panel building. She paused inside just long enough to get directions to the right section and then she was going again.

Near the back of the library they found the shelves full of local public records, and one shelf entirely devoted to old, leather-bound high school yearbooks. Nathan quickly did the math in his head and then grabbed the book with the embossed 1982 on the spine. "This should've been Keller's first year of school," he said as he flipped through the pages. After the first half of individual photos he reached the team photographs, lines of students dressed in matching uniforms.

"God, those clothes," Audrey said, wrinkling her nose. "Why did anyone ever think those looked good?"

Nathan snorted. "You're telling me you never wore anything embarrassing when you were younger?"

"I went to a Catholic school," she reminded him. "I didn't get much choice in my clothes."

Nathan felt his mind drift to the idea of Audrey and Catholic school uniforms, and he hastily cleared his throat as heat crawled up the back of his neck. To distract himself, he turned a few more pages until his eyes landed on a photograph of two rows of boys in hockey uniforms beneath a heading of the junior varsity team. "Here, this is it," he said and held the book out toward her. She pressed up close to his side so they could both examine the photo.

"There," she said and tapped the picture. "Keller. And that's Gaven. But is Lehrmann in it?" Nathan's eyes ran over the list of names beneath the photo, but Myles Lehrmann's name was not on it. "This is just one year. They could've been on it together another year."

She took the yearbook from him, replacing it on the shelf and grabbing the one from the next year. Her nimble fingers scanned through the pages at top speed and then landed on the page for the hockey teams. Troy Gaven was still in the junior team, Keller had moved up to the varsity, but there was still no sign of Lehrmann.

"I don't understand," Audrey said in frustration, snapping the book shut. "This is the best link we have between them." She shoved the book back into place and snatched up the next one. "I mean, Lehrmann went to this school, right?"

"If he grew up in Haven, yes," Nathan said. "Here. He was a year older, he would've been in year twelve that year." He scoured the pages of alphabetical school pictures until he found the right one, a photo of a much younger Myles Lehrmann with his blonde hair in a bowl cut, wearing the same black tuxedo as every other senior boy.

"So he went to the school," she said, taking the yearbook back from him and turning pages. "They were definitely connected in that way. But it has to be more than that. It has to be more than just someone killing off random people who went to the same school. Ugh." She made a noise of frustration, gesturing to the page. It was another hockey team picture, and Lehrmann was not in it. "This was the last year they were all three in school together. Lehrmann graduated that year."

"Which means that the only connection we have between them is that they went to the same school around the same time," Nathan said. "But that doesn't narrow it down any. There were about a thousand people who also went to school at the same time." He closed the book and stuck it back onto the shelf. "We should head back to the office, see if we can find anything else out about Lehrmann and how he might be link to the others."

"One sec, there's one more thing I want to check," Audrey said and scanned the shelf. Nathan's brow furrowed until she pulled out a yearbook marked 1995.

"Parker," he said in exasperation and she just smirked at him over the rim of the book. He braced himself for the inevitable as she turned to the end of the senior class and suddenly let out a short giggle. "Happy now?"

"Your hair was a bit longer then," she said, glancing from him to the senior year photo in the book. "I didn't realise your hair is quite so curly."

"Hence why it's short now," he responded dryly. "Are we finished?"

Audrey laughed and closed the book. "Okay, sorry, forgive a girl a little curiosity." She tucked the book back into the shelf and smiled. "Right, back to the office."

. . . . .

The research turned up absolutely nothing and Audrey was starting to get supremely frustrated with this case. The tox screen results had come back, and it was in fact cyanide poisoning that had killed Lehrmann, but they had learned nothing else from it. She was used to the challenge that the Trouble provided, used to dissecting the answers and breaking down the puzzle, but this one seemed to be particularly difficult. People were losing their lives and the longer it took for her solve the riddle, the more people were dying.

Nathan was tapping away at his computer, but she could tell by the frown lines scratched deeply into his forehead that he wasn't having any luck either. Audrey skated her eyes over his face and felt the corner of her lips twist upward. Despite the awkwardness of the morning, things felt more relaxed between them than they had been since the Sandglass case had ended.

And the image of the lanky, bony cheeked and curly haired eighteen year old Nathan wouldn't leave her mind, threatening to make her break out into giggles again. He was every bit the same awkwardly sweet man she knew, only with fewer lines in his face and less heaviness in his eyes.

He looked the way that he had last night.

A tap at the door made them both look up and the Chief nodded stiffly. "Got another one? Connected?"

"We think so," Audrey said, wanting to waylay the inevitable stubbornness-off that would occur between the two Wuornos' the moment Nathan opened his mouth. "We just haven't found the connection yet. The last vic didn't exactly leave us with a lot of avenues to follow."

"So start around t' beginning again," the Chief said, popping a piece of nicotine gum into his mouth. "You checked with the wives yet, see if they knew anything about the new guy?"

"Was just about to do that," Nathan chipped in briskly. Audrey fought to keep the surprised look off her face; he hadn't said anything about that before. Then again, odds were he was saying it simply to one-up his father and not seem inexperienced for having not thought of that already. Wouldn't be the first time he'd done it. The feud between them was so tedious sometimes.

The Chief grunted, looking sceptical but thankfully choosing not to act on it. "Right. The techs said they dusted the house for prints. Nothing but partials, nothing good enough for a match. Said it might not hurt to check the house over again though. Found some footprints in the snow by the cellar, may be something in there."

"Thanks Chief," Audrey said gratefully, her mind already racing. Had the killer been hiding out in the cellar? Was there some clue down there to who had committed the crimes, or how exactly they'd done it?

"We should get on that," Nathan said. Audrey blinked and looked up, realising with a tint of surprise that the Chief had left and Nathan was now standing up from behind his desk. "Go ask Keller and Gaven's wives if they know how Lehrmann fits into this."

"You go," she said, jumping up and grabbing her coat. "I want to check the house again. See what's down in that cellar. We never even bothered to check there this morning."

"Parker, you don't have a car," Nathan pointed out.

"So you can drop me off on your way," she said simply.

Nathan frowned and she could see the apprehension written in the furrows of his brow. "You sure you should go by yourself? It's getting dark out."

"I'll be fine, Nathan," she said, struggling to contain her sigh of exasperation. "I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself. Besides, like you said, it's getting late. This way we can get both jobs done as soon as possible." She shrugged her coat on and when Nathan didn't budge she softened her expression and added, "There's been one death every day for the last three days. If we can solve this tonight, perhaps we can prevent a fourth tomorrow."

Her partner let out a heavy breath, but obligingly pulled his coat on and nodded toward the door. They left the slowly emptying station and Nathan drove them back to Lehrmann's house. Before she could get out, Nathan put a hand on hers. "Call me to pick you up when you're done," he said, concern driving his already deep voice down another notch. "It's going to get cold, fast."

"Don't worry, I'm all bundled up," she said, zipping up her coat pointedly and smiling. "I'm just going to check around the cellar, see if there's anything we missed, and then I'll call." She turned her hand over to squeeze his gently. "Good luck with the interrogations."

Nathan smirked slightly and she felt his fingers fidget in hers. "Yeah, you too."

With that Audrey slipped down out of the truck and started the march around the side of the house. She heard the truck idling for a moment before it shifted into gear and drove up the road, and then a still silence fell over the area. The sun was just setting and she could feel the temperature sliding steadily downward with each minute. Jamming her bare hands - damn, she'd forgotten gloves again - into her coat pockets, she walked around the house in search of the cellar door.

On the opposite side of the house, near the rear corner, she found the pair of small wooden doors set into the foundation. It appeared to have been padlocked at some point, but the lock had been removed and was currently resting on top of the stack of concrete edging blocks beside the doors. There did seem to be some sort of prints in the snow around it, but they didn't look like human footprints. They were narrow, scuffling, and distorted like the owner didn't have legs tall enough to not drag them through the snow. The steps of a very, very short person? Or maybe just a cat, she rationalised. Either way, it was curious.

Twilight was falling fast and Audrey lamented that she didn't have her police issue torch with her. Pulling out her phone, she switched on the app that turned the camera flash into a weak torch. It would have to do for now. Crouching down, she opened the doors to the cellar and shined the light inside. It looked like your average storage cellar, with wooden shelves and garden tools and canned food. Audrey cocked her head to the side, squinting. There were swipes in the dust, a sign of someone recently being in there.

She stood and had just lifted one foot to walk down into the cellar when there was a sudden pull at her other ankle. In a wave of vertigo she tumbled forward, her mobile flying out of her hand as she fell through the air. Her head cracked against the frame of the cellar doors, and blackness had claimed her before she reached the ground below.


	10. Chapter 10 - Body Heat

AN: Here I come to save you all from the horrible cliffhanger. I hope you all find it satisfying. A little sweetness with the suspense, and next chapter should definitely have some more sweetness in it. We're getting closer to the end as well, so building toward the climax. I'd guess about six or seven more chapters.

AN2: Update! Reposted to include a line I forgot that is crucial to the next chapter. Sorry for the confusion and reposting, but it was necessary. If you don't want to read the whole thing again, I'll post the change at the very bottom so you can just skip to the bottom.

* * *

**Chapter 10 - Body Heat**

Nathan had never been one to believe in premonition or vibes, but as he drove away from dropping Audrey at Lehrmann's house, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. He wouldn't be able to convince Audrey of that though. She was too damn stubborn and proud for her own good sometimes. Besides, she had a point. They needed to solve this case as quickly as possible. If the killer followed their pattern then someone else would die tomorrow, someone from a long list of possible victims that they had no way of narrowing down. They had to stop this before it got worse.

The lights were still on at the Keller's house when he arrived and he parked at the kerb before carefully taking the icy path up to the door. He knocked and there was silence for a minute until the door was opened by Judith Keller, dressed in an over-large flannel shirt that Nathan assumed must have belonged to her husband. "Detective Wuornos," she said in surprise. "Did you find out who-?" She swallowed hard and blinked. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions," he said. "I'm sure you've heard there've been more deaths."

"Troy, yeah, Mandy called me yesterday," she said. "She's actually here now. Please, come in. We can talk inside where it's warm." She stepped back and let him into the house, and then gestured him through to the dining room. Amanda Gaven was sitting at the table, nursing a cup of what smelled like chamomile tea, and she looked up curiously when he came in.

"Detective, did you find out anything?" she asked hopefully. "It wasn't just an accident, was it?

"We don't think so, ma'am," Nathan said awkwardly. Amanda set the teacup down with a clink and Judith slipped into the chair beside her, indicating for him to sit down opposite. He sat gingerly in the chair, aware of the weight of the two widow's eyes on him. "There was another death this morning, and we feel that with the close time-frame, they might all be connected somehow."

"Someone did this to Troy on purpose," Amanda concluded.

"There is evidence that the chains your husband had installed were tampered with," he admitted. "They were not broken, but unhooked. Someone had taken them off the shelves, so there was no support to hold them up. That's why they collapsed."

"Oh God," she said and she buried her head on Judith's shoulder. "Why would someone do that? It was so horrible, it must have hurt him so badly. Who could be so cruel?"

"You think it was the same person who killed Bart?" Judith spoke up, simultaneously rubbing her hand across Amanda's back soothingly.

"We believe so," he agreed. "This morning Myles Lehrmann died of cyanide poisoning."

"Oh! Poor Myles!" Judith said emphatically, her free hand covering her mouth in shock.

"So you knew him as well?" Nathan asked. Maybe this was it. Maybe they would finally find a link between the three men that might lead them to a suspect, or at the very list future possible victims that they could keep a watch on. "Was he connected to your husbands in any way?"

"Only in passing," Amanda said, wiping her eyes and straightening up. "We went to school together; Bart, Troy, Myles and I. Myles was a year older than the boys. They weren't friends or anything. Myles was a bit of an ass, honestly."

"Amanda!" Judith scolded.

"Well he was," Amanda continued unrepentantly. "He was such a bully, always picking on anyone he could push around. Over-compensating since he was a closet queer."

"So you can't think of any connection between your husbands and Lehrmann apart from going to school together?" Nathan pressed. "No school groups they were in or places they frequented as adults?"

"Bart and Troy didn't do anything but hockey in school," Amanda said and shrugged. "Myles was a bit of a loner, didn't associate with anyone apart from the people he was beating up. I don't know if any of them ever spoke a word to each other at all, really."

Nathan scowled and rubbed his upper lip, despite the hollowness of the gesture. This wasn't getting him anywhere. "Bart was a regular at the Rust Bucket, did Troy happen to go there often?" he asked, grasping at straws.

"No, Troy never drank," Amanda said firmly. "His father was an alcoholic and he didn't want to go down the same path. Wouldn't even have a glass of wine on special occasions."

In his head Nathan was running through every possible scenario he could think of that might bring the three men together. Keller and Gaven both had children but Lehrmann didn't. "They didn't happen to attend any of the same places, did they?" he asked. "Visit the same doctor, shop at the same stores, anything?"

"Bart hasn't been to a doctor in at least five years," Judith said with a watery laugh. "Didn't trust them."

"And Troy had to buy all of his clothes specially because he was so tall," Amanda said, promptly shooting a hole in his last desperate hopes.

"I'm sorry for all of the questions," he said wearily. "We're just trying to find out what connects them so we can stop this person before they kill anyone else."

"Of course, we understand," Judith said. "Would you like a cup of tea? We can go through any more things, see if something comes up the same."

Nathan sighed but nodded. "Thank you, that would be nice," he said. Judith smiled and then walked into the kitchen.

"She's been so sweet to me," Amanda said fondly. "When she heard what happened she reached out to me. And it's so nice to have someone who understands what I'm going through. It's good to not be alone. Everyone just keeps telling me how sorry they are, and that Troy would want me to move on, but Judes doesn't. She gets it, you know. The horrible feeling, the loneliness. I don't know what I'm going to do without him." She sniffled and blinked back tears, her grip on the teacup white knuckled.

Nathan hesitated, not sure what to say to that. Instinctively he felt like he should give her condolences, but she had just said that she was tired of hearing that. Thankfully he was saved from answering when she went on, "And poor Lily. Our daughter," she added at his confused look. "She and Troy were so close, she's completely heart-broken. And I just don't know how to comfort her. I want to tell her things will get better, but that doesn't change the fact that her father is gone, you know?"

Nathan nodded, and found that that was all he was required to submit to the conversation. Amanda Gaven continued to talk away, sharing her sadness and the troubles she was inevitably going to face as a widow and single mother, and whenever she paused he would simply nod and prompt her on and she would press on. It seemed like she didn't care so much how he responded and was just looking for someone to listen, so he gave her that.

Fifteen minutes and the whistle of a kettle later, Judith Keller returned to the dining room with a cup of steaming tea and she set it on the table in front of him with a soft smile. "So, is there anything else we can think of to help?" she asked.

They spent a long time running through every possible theory that Nathan could come up with, every possible chance that there might be for a link between the three dead men. It resulted in absolutely nothing. They came up with dozens of things that two of the three men had in common, but nothing that connected all three. Finally they admitted defeat when Judith's parents returned home with her children, and Nathan excused himself. "If you do happen to think of anything your husbands might have had in common with Lehrmann, please give me a call," he said before he left the Keller house.

It was only as he was getting into his truck that Nathan realised he hadn't heard from Audrey yet. Scowling, he checked his phone but there were no messages or missed calls despite the fact that it had been well over an hour since he'd dropped her off. He dialled her number and waited, but it rang through to her voicemail. "Parker, what are you doing?" he muttered aloud, tucking his phone back into his pocket and turning the truck ignition. That feeling of trepidation and uneasiness he had noticed before was back again and worse than before.

He drove more quickly than was necessarily legal to the opposite side of town where Lehrmann lived. On the way he called Audrey twice more with no success. By the time he parked against the kerb with a screech of tires, he was nearing to panic. His breath misted in front of him as he jumped down out of the truck, sliding on the icy street, and ran to the house.

"Parker!" he shouted and listened attentively for some response. "Parker!" He checked inside the house quickly, hoping that perhaps she had gone inside to look for some clue and hadn't heard him, but the house was silent and empty. Back outside, he began walking a circle around the house in search of the cellar she was going to search for. What if the killer had been hiding out in there? What if they had gotten the jump on her? God, if something had happened to her...

He finally spotted the cellar doors, the snow around it trampled by her footprints, and he sprinted over to them. The cellar was locked, a heavy padlock secured through the latch, and there was no sign of Audrey. Except... He knelt down and picked up the little silver object half-buried where it had fallen in the snow. Audrey's mobile, with the three missed calls from him blinking on the screen.

"Parker!" His voice broke with pure panic. "Parker, where are you?" He looked around desperately but there were no footsteps leading away from the cellar. Where could she have gone?

His eyes fell on the cellar doors, the wood unburied despite the layer of snow on everything else. They had been opened at some recent point. Reaching down, he pried the doors up as far as they would go with the latch down and shone his belt torch through the crack. The beam fell on wooden steps, a dirty concrete floor, and a single pale hand. "Parker!"

Nathan dropped his torch in the snow and looked around frantically for some tool to break the lock with but he couldn't find anything beneath the inches of snow on the ground. Gritting his teeth, he drew his gun, angled it so the bullet wouldn't go straight down in case it hit Audrey, and fired two quick shots. The lock fractured and he clawed it off the broken latch, throwing the doors open.

"Parker!" he called, thundering down the steps so fast he slipped and slid down the bottom two stairs. Ignoring his own state, he fell to his knees beside Audrey's crumpled figure, sprawled ungracefully on the floor. He reached for her face, meaning to check for her vitals, but flinched back at the incredible cold of her skin. "Shit." Rolling her onto her back, he put his fingers to her throat and waited. The pulse was there, slow and thread, and a quick check showed she was still breathing, but her skin was deathly white and her fingers and lips were tinged blue.

"C'mon, Parker, wake up," he said, tapping her cheek lightly. "Open your eyes." Audrey groaned and he felt his heart leap into his throat. "That's it, Parker, wake up for me."

"N'th," she slurred through quivering lips and he could've cried with relief.

"I'm going to get you out of here, okay," he said, pulling his mobile out with a shaking hand, the other squeezing one of her pale hands to ground her. God, she was freezing. Her temperature had fallen so far already; she must've been there for a while. Mild hypothermia at best, more likely moderate. Thankfully, he had lived in Maine long enough to know how to deal with the situation. He hit the speed dial for the station number and waited impatiently on the answer, keeping an eye on Audrey the entire time.

"Haven Police Department," Laverne's wheezy rasp said through the speaker. "What's the nat-"

"Laverne, it's me," Nathan said, cutting across her. He'd apologise later but this was urgent. God knew how long she'd already been down here, much longer and... No, don't think about that. "Get an ambulance to the Lehrmann crime scene, A-Sap. Tell them to bring hypothermia blankets."

"Right on it, honey," Laverne said and she promptly clicked off the line to make his call.

Jamming his phone back into his pocket, Nathan leaned in to check on Audrey again. Her eyes were half-open and she looked dazed. His mind ran through everything he had ever learned in first aid classes, picking out what he could do to help. "Parker, I need you to stay awake, okay?" he said, placing a hand on her frigid cheek.

"Nath'n," she said, her eyes focusing on him as he bent over her. "S-sss-so c-cold."

"I know. Helps already coming, they'll get you warmed up. You just have to hang in there for me. Just a bit longer." He looked around for some sort of blanket but there were nothing but tin cans and garden tools in the cellar. "I'm going to get you out to the truck, okay? There's a blanket in there and I'll get you warmed up. It's probably gonna hurt though."

Audrey made a pitiful humming noise, although whether it was intentional assent or not, he couldn't begin to guess. He scooped her into his arms as gently as he could, yelping slightly as her freezing forehead fell against his bare neck, and then carried her up the steps. He half-jogged to the truck, trying to jostle her as little as possible. Her skin would be tender and sore from such extreme cold, and her muscles would ache from shivering so much.

Awkwardly opening the passenger door with the hand beneath her knees, he laid her on the bench seat. She instinctively curled up on her side, trying to retain what faint traces of body heat she still had. He dug out the blanket he kept beneath the seat for emergencies and glanced over her coat. He frowned when he spotted a darkness to the fabric along her arm, and more of them on her jeans. Her clothes were damp from laying on the ground.

"Parker, your clothes are wet," he said, trying to keep her focusing on him and also not wanting to frighten her with what he had to do next. "I need to get them off you or you're not going to warm up. Okay?"

She didn't seem to comprehend what he was saying. Gritting his teeth, Nathan climbed halfway onto the bench beside her and pulled down the zip on her coat. She didn't fight him as he pried it off, which told him she must have understood him on some level, and he tossed it to the floor. Her shirt sleeve was also wet and he grimaced as he worked the buttons free and threw that aside as well. She whimpered and gave him a tragic, terrified look through her lashes.

"I know, I'm sorry," he said and was surprised at the thickness of his own voice. He took his coat off and wrapped it across her shoulders to sustain her for the time being. "Just your jeans and then I'll get you warm." He shuddered as his fingers brushed her cold stomach, popping the button of her jeans and sliding them down off her legs, discarding her boots in the process. Her shivering grew worse as she huddled in on herself inside of his coat, but that was good. Shivering meant her body was contracting muscles to generate friction and heat. They weren't in serious trouble unless she stopped shivering.

Immediately, his hands went to his own jumper and he peeled it off. He stripped out of his jeans and then climbed into the truck next to her, shutting the door to keep the cold out of the cab. He saw Audrey's eyes on him as he grabbed the blanket, now wearing nothing but his underwear, and he forced a tight smile. "It'll help, I promise," he said and then lifted her into his lap.

Nathan reached out and pulled her into his lap, not able to stop the horrified gasp at how cold she was. After so many years of nothing, of absolutely no temperatures at all, the ice of her skin was actually painful. It sent needles and daggers through his flesh and immediately made his heart rate jump to compensate. It was a glorious, agonising sensation.

Reminding himself that Audrey was feeling that same thing ten-fold, he cradled her in his lap and then wrapped the blanket around the both of them. It created a tent of warmth, his body heat transferring slowly to her through their contact, and he tucked her as close to him as he could manage. He manoeuvred his coat so it sealed the heat in on her side, and then reached into his pocket and found his keys. Without moving her, he stuck them into the ignition and started the truck, flicking the heater switches to their highest setting.

"You still awake?" he asked, settling his cheek against the back of her neck. Every instinct in him was telling him to rub some warmth into her arms and legs, but he knew that would only hurt her worse. And if, heaven forbid, she'd gotten frostbite anywhere then it would only aggravate the injured skin. Despite the fact that she was shaking so badly he doubted she could even see straight, he felt her nod her head against his collarbone. "Good girl, you've got to stay awake. Can't fall asleep yet."

"C-c-could'na 'f I wanna," she stuttered. "T-too c-c-col'."

Those were almost full sentences, meaning she was at least mostly coherent for now. That was one worry off the checklist. "The ambulance is on its way," he told her, adjusting her slightly so her chest was more closely aligned with his. Needed to keep those vital organs warm; that was most important. "You're going to be okay."

"C-cc-ould r-really uss-se a d-drink-k," she stammered with a weak laugh.

Nathan smiled against the top of her head. "You stay awake until the medics get here and drinks are on me. Whatever you want. Just stay awake."

"F-fine. Y-y-you're sss-so w-warm," she said and nuzzled her head into his chest, one of her little hands gripping at his side. It almost tickled and he marvelled at the alien sensation for a moment.

"And you're freezing," he responded. It was a small miracle that she was conscious enough to maintain something of a conversation and he was grasped at any chance to help keep her awake. The risk of coma was too great if she nodded off now.

"Y-y-you c-can fe-ee-el it," she said and he was amazed at what she was implying. How was it that, even in her horrible, near death state, she could still think about him? That she could sound so glad to be able to give him that one thing only she could even while she was freezing to death?

"Yeah, and I would be fascinated if I wasn't so worried about you," he said, struggling to keep up the threat of the conversation. Still, he tightened his arms around her to show that he appreciated her concern none-the-less.

Before she could respond, his ears caught the sound of salvation and he sighed in relief. "There's the ambulance," he said. "Almost here, Parker. Just stay with me a bit longer."

"D-don' le-eave," she said hastily, half-panicked as she lifted her head to look up at him.

"Never, Parker," he promised, tucking her back against him as the ambulance pulled up behind the truck and he saw the EMTs hop out. "I'm right here, with you. Always will be."

She smiled against his collarbone, her lips just brushing his skin as she replied, "M-me too."

* * *

The Addition: While Nathan is keeping Audrey warm in the truck, she jokes that she could use a drink and Nathan tells her if she stays awake until the paramedics arrive then he'll buy her all the drinks she wants.

It doesn't seem important, but trust me. It plays a part...


	11. Chapter 11 - In From the Cold

AN: For those of you who missed the update, I reposted last chapter because there was a minor edit. It wasn't a significant change, just a couple lines I forgot to add in the first post that are essential to this chapter, involving Nathan offering to take Audrey out for a drink if she stayed awake until the ambulance showed up. You'll see why it matters later this chapter. Cheers!

* * *

**Chapter 11 - In From the Cold**

_Audrey looked around her desperately, searching for some way out. She was surrounded on every side by walls of ice; thick, solid ice that formed a sturdy barrier between her and the world outside. She didn't even have clothes to protect her and the cold sank into her bones as she thoroughly investigated each wall in vain. She was trapped. Surrounded. Freezing to death in her icy prison._

_"Parker."_

_Through the ice Audrey could see a blur of colour and she hurried across the slippery floor to the spot. She could see a long-fingered pale hand pressed to the ice on the other side of the wall, the rest of the figure just an indistinct smear of white. "Nathan," she said frantically and pressed her hand against the ice over his. "Nathan, I can't get out."_

_"You have to," Nathan responded from the other side. As he said it Audrey looked down at her own hand and realised that the ice had spread like a plague, forming over the top of her hand and wrist, trapping her in place. She watched in horror as the icy tendrils continued to creep further up her arm, beautiful and sinister clusters of ice crystals sprouting and joining to encase her limb in a rock-hard prison._

_"Nathan, help!" she said in panic, fighting to pull her arm free to no avail even as the ice crawled up toward her shoulder. It was a piercing, stabbing cold that sliced through her like razor blades. "Nathan!"_

_"You've got to fight it, Parker. Hold on. You can do this."_

_"I can't," she said hopelessly, the ice webbing together over her shoulder and collarbone, and then spreading out in every direction. Over her back, her breast, her neck, across to her other shoulder. She looked down at the sharp pain and saw that her legs were trapped up to the knees in thick ice that was defying gravity as it climbed her thighs. "I'm stuck Nathan, please."_

_"I'm coming, Parker, just hold on a bit longer." The ice had spread across her chest, freezing through to her heart. God it hurt so much. Every beat of her heart jostled the needles of ice and sent new spasms of pain through her. Every breath brought ice crystals into her, where they attacked her from within as well as without._

_She shook with fear as the icy wall continued to swallow her whole. Fear and bone-chilling cold. The ice burnt as it crept up her neck and over the ridge of her jaw. Her cheeks, her nose, her ears. And then it crawled inward, flooding into her nostrils and her mouth until it was hard to breathe, blinding her as it gouged into her eyes. It hurt, so much pain from every direction. Make it stop, make it end..._

_"Parker!" The shout was loud, stinging her sensitive ears. She just wanted to sleep, couldn't they just leave her alone? "Parker! C'mon Parker...Wake up."_

_Something tapped sharply against her cheek, making her head toss to the side and sending agonising flashes of light through her brain. But wait, how had her head moved if she was trapped in the ice? What had touched her? It hadn't been cold, it wasn't the ice. "Open your eyes."_

_Groggily, Audrey tried to prise her eyelids open but the ice weighed down on them, so heavy. She moaned at the pain it sent through her ice-impaled eyes. "That's it." He sounded so happy, so grateful. Who was that again? She felt like she should know. "Parker, wake up for me."_

_Parker. He called her Parker. Of course, she knew who it was. Who else would it be? Who was always there to save her in the end?_

"N'th." Audrey couldn't move her jaw properly and her tongue felt thick and clumsy, squashing all of the sounds almost beyond recognition. It didn't matter though. He would know. He always knew. His hand was in hers, warm and solid and steady. Nathan had come to save her again, to take her away from the icy prison.

Only it wasn't a prison at all, at least not one made of ice. No, the cold, the stiffness, it was _her_. Her own body was a prison of ice, trapping her in place and chilling her so deeply that it hurt. God, it hurt _so much_.

She felt like her eyes were open, but she couldn't see anything. It was just a shifting haze of darkness, layers of shadows dancing across each other. One of the shadows loomed closer and spoke. "Parker, I need you to stay awake, okay?" _Nathan_.

His large, warm hand covered her cheek and it felt like fire but it was real and she wouldn't have pulled away even if she could. She squinted and the shadows blurred into colours, sharpened until she could make out the fuzzy pale and pink and blue of her partner's face. "Nath'n," she murmured, proud of herself for managing two whole syllables, despite the effort it cost. She had to tell Nathan, let him know what was happening. If it was a Trouble, he might not know... Might not feel it... "S-sss-so c-cold."

"I know." Audrey relaxed and the rest of his sentence faded into white noise. He knew. He was going to help her, to make her better, to make it stop hurting. Her vision slipped out and she retreated inside her head, where she was safe and warm, wrapped in one of Nathan's jumpers and pine and amber and his arms. Nathan. So warm. Safe.

. . . . .

Audrey came to slowly. Every muscle in her body was protesting the effort of even breathing and she wanted nothing more than to sink back into unconsciousness, but something was dragging her steadily toward consciousness. She was powerless to stop it, letting it pull her up more fully into the persistent ache of her body reluctantly.

A pained groan escaped her as the last traces of sleep drifted away and the full pain of her sore muscles settled over her. Instantly she heard movement and then something warm and large touched her cheek. "Parker?"

"Nathan," she breathed in relief. It was Nathan, her partner, the one who had saved her. She hurt, but it wasn't the same hurt that she had been in before. That had been agonising, sharp, deadly. This was heavy and tired and tender like she'd worked her muscles too hard, but it wasn't unliveable. She was alive. "Hi."

"Jesus, Parker," Nathan responded with an airy laugh. She could feel his breath brushing warm and gentle across her face. Cinnamon and coffee and sweet. Maple. Syrup. _Pancakes_. "You gave me a heart attack. When you didn't answer your phone..."

It took a great deal more effort than it ought to, but Audrey forced her eyes open and squinted against the harsh fluorescents. Everything around the edges was nothing but white, but she could make out Nathan's face, less than a foot from hers. Their eyes met and she watched a wash of emotion roll through those stormy-sea orbs, finally settling on relief. He leaned in and pressed a warm kiss to her forehead before drawing away. He slid off the side of her bed – because she realised she was lying in a bed – and perched himself on a chair beside her, taking her hand in both of his.

"You're going to be okay," he said softly, and his tone suggested he was saying it as much for himself as for her. "Doc said you shouldn't have any problems, but you'll be sore for a couple days."

"What happened?" she asked, trying to shift into a more comfortable position but her muscles wouldn't cooperate.

"Hypothermia," he answered. "Moderate. No frostbite even though your hands were bare. That's why I gave you my gloves, you know." Audrey chuckled lightly and then promptly grimaced as it made her sore abdominal muscles twinge. "So are you going to stick to your martinis or are you trying something new?"

"Bit early for drinking, you think?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Because I–" Nathan paused, looking confused. "You don't remember?"

"Remember what? I don't remember much of anything, really." She scowled and reached up to rub her forehead. When she touched the plaster above her left eyebrow she winced. "I fell, and I – I hit my head. And then I remember the cold, and I think I remember you saying my name, and then... that's it."

Nathan frowned and leaned forward, placing his forearms on the edge of the bed. "We had an entire conversation," he said and there was something strained in his voice. "You don't remember any of it?"

Audrey forced herself to think back, searching through the fuzzy gap in her memory. She could recall bits of her dream of being trapped in ice, being woken up and realising that she was freezing, of the relief that Nathan had found her. Then it all faded into darkness again, a blur of shadows and indistinct noises and the ever present cold, so cold. "No, nothing," she admitted. "Why?"

It was like a shutter had gone down behind his eyes, and Nathan abruptly dropped her hand and leaned back in the chair. "Nothing, it wasn't important," he said with a shrug. "Just a joke. It's fine."

She didn't get a chance to say anything before there was a light knock that made them both look over curiously. A man in a white lab coat strode in, clutching a clipboard and smiling. "Ah, Officer Parker, you're awake," he said cheerfully. "That's good. How do you feel?"

"Sore," Audrey admitted.

"You all warmed up though?" he asked, checking a monitor beside the bed. "Yes, looks like you're nearly all the way back up to a good core temperature. You're a lucky lady, you know. You've got a good partner. Much longer and you might not have been fine. According to the EMTs it sounds like he saved your life. He bought you a bit more time, enough at least for the paramedics to show up."

Audrey glanced over at her partner, whose ears had gone a lovely shade of bright pink. She knew that he had saved her, but she hadn't realised how close it had been. As he met her gaze though there was a flicker in his eyes, a haunted look that she recognised. She'd seen it in the mirror during the Sandglass case, and every time she'd had another one of _those_ nightmares. The look of someone who had nearly watched death take someone from them.

The doctor interrupted her thoughts by starting on his checklist to make sure she was all right. He had her answer a few questions to test her memory and coherency, put her through a series of motor skills challenges that made her weary muscles shake, and then checked every last one of her vitals before finally declaring her in the clear. "We're going to keep you overnight and check on you in the morning, but you should be just fine," he said with a kindly smile. "I'll send the nurse in to give you something for the pain and to help you sleep."

With that he turned on his heel and left the room, and a tense silence boiled up between Nathan and Audrey again. After a moment Audrey looked up at him and said, "Thank you."

"I did what I had to," he said simply, shifting awkwardly and not quite able to meet her eyes. "I – You're my partner. I had to do something."

"I suppose I'm lucky you know first aid," she said, trying to diffuse the strain.

Nathan's mouth quirked up slightly on the side. "I'm a cop in Maine," he pointed out dryly. "They make sure we know how to treat people for the cold."

Audrey chuckled. "I guess I missed that class," she said. "I should probably take that one."

"Yeah, probably." He rubbed the back of his neck. "What happened to you, Parker?"

"I fell," she said and then shook her head. "No, something grabbed my ankle. I don't know what it was though. It wasn't a person. The snow was frozen, I'd have heard it if someone came up behind me." She paused and frowned. "Unless they were very small and light, enough that they didn't crack the ice."

"The killer," he concluded darkly. "Damn it, I knew you should've have gone alone. When you didn't answer my calls, I thought..." he faltered, swallowing hard, like he was forcing the words back down. "Don't scare me like that again."

"I didn't mean to," she said.

"You never mean to, but then you keep provoking all of these people, all of these Troubled people. You make yourself a target and then things like this happen. You could've died, Parker. I thought you were dead."

"But I'm not," she said.

"But you could've been," he snapped back. He scrubbed a hand over his face and stood up, pacing the length of the bed. "They put a lock on the doors. They didn't want to just hurt you, they wanted you _dead_."

"I'm sorry, okay?!" she shouted, sitting up despite the cries of her muscles and her cheeks flushed indignantly. "I'm sorry that I scared you. But that's part of the job, Nathan. We risk our lives, that's what we do. You're not the only one who's almost lost someone. When the sandglass... I thought you were going to die in that hospital. I was so scared. But you don't hear me shouting at you because you got caught in the cross-fire of some Troubled psycho."

Nathan had frozen and he stared at her with wide eyes, the look of shock on his face almost comical. He opened and closed his mouth twice, and then sank down into the chair again. Not looking up from his hands, he said, "Sorry. I just – I was worried."

Audrey felt the anger rush out of her at his defeated expression. "I know, I'm sorry too," she said. With the rush of emotion gone, the exhaustion settled back into place and she slumped back against the pillows with a groan, shaking with exertion.

Nathan's head snapped up at the noise and he immediately stood, leaning over her and fidgeting uncertainly. "God, Parker, are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine, just tired," she said, waving a dismissive hand. Nathan still looked anxious so she grabbed his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "I'm fine, Nathan."

A throat cleared from the doorway and they both looked up to see an elderly nurse carrying a thick syringe. "I don't mean to interrupt, but Miss Parker needs to rest now," she said gently. "The doctor says you can stay, if you'd like," she added to Nathan.

Nathan hesitated, shifting his weight, but Audrey tightened her grip on his hand instinctively. "Stay," she said and then blushed, trying to cover the sudden, inexplicable panic that had filled her at the idea of being left alone in that hospital room. "I mean, if you don't mind." He nodded and sat back down in the chair beside her bed, not letting go of her hand.

The nurse came over and inserted the syringe into the IV attached to Audrey's other arm. "Alright, dear, you get some sleep and we'll see how you are in the morning," she said and patted Audrey's shoulder. With a kindly smile, she turned and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

"Thank you," Audrey said once they were alone again. "For staying, I mean. I just – I really hate hospitals. If you have somewhere else to be, you can go." Even as she said it, she held onto his hand just a little tighter. She couldn't tell him why she was terrified of being in the hospital; that it conjured too many memories of his slacken face as he collapsed against her, the pure fear in his voice as her name was the last thing he said, the sight of him stark white and comatose in the pale bed, the deeply wrapped bandages around his neck where they'd cut into his skull.

But it seemed like she didn't need to when he returned the pressure on her hand. "It's fine, Parker," he said and smiled. "I understand. I don't like them either." They lapsed into a steady quiet for a few moments, and Audrey felt a fuzzy weightlessness spreading through her as the morphine began to take effect. Her tense muscles began to uncoil and she relaxed into the pillows with a lazy smile.

As she lay there and let the drugs soften her body and mind, she felt her eyes drifting to the man keeping a silent vigil at her bedside. His expression was casual and disinterested, almost bored as he stared down at their entwined hands, but months of experience had taught her better. There was a certain slump of his shoulders, a set of lines around his temples, and a look in his distant eyes: it was a look she'd seen once before, the day Jess Minion packed up and trod on his heart as she headed out of town.

"Nathan?" she prompted gently, a burr of sleepiness in her voice that she didn't remember being there before. He glanced up, an eyebrow lifted in silent question. "You sure you're okay?"

"Fine," he said, almost as if by instinct, and she narrowed her eyes at him sceptically. "Long night," he relented.

"Didn't answer my question," she pointed out.

His lips curved into a diagonal slash and he puffed out a soft laugh. "Good observation, detective," he teased. She squeezed his hand and he sighed. "I will be," he finally acquiesced. "I'll be okay. Always am. Always will be." For some reason he said the final words with a sardonic twist that felt like a bitter knife cutting through the air. Before Audrey could ask what he meant, he leaned back in the chair and offered her a weak grin. "You can barely keep your eyes open."

"It's fine," she said even as the gravitational pull on her eyelids seemed to triple. A foggy haze had slunk into her brain and the pull of exhaustion and medication was getting harder to resist with every second, but she was fighting it. Something was wrong with Nathan and she needed to know what it was. She couldn't shake the feeling that it was something she'd done, that she had been the one to put the bitter resignation in his tone. "Nathan..."

"You heard the doc," he said and cradled her hand in both of his. With the pad of his thumb he began rubbing gentle circles into the inside of her wrist that felt so relaxing and comforting and good. "Sleep, Parker. I'll be here when you wake up."

And she couldn't fight it any longer, letting herself slip into the morphine-induced mist.


End file.
